Reflecting

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After the outcome improvement process

This guide helps you to think about whether your participation request has led to an outcome you are satisfied with and what lessons you have learned form the process

Measuring success

Now that the Outcome Improvement Process has ended, you will want to think about whether the outcome has been improved. Did you use our Working Agreement Template and What Does Success Look Like? guide to set out what you hoped to achieve and what success would look like?

Have we improved the outcomes we set?

  • Did you improve the overall outcome you set out to improve or is there a plan in place to do that? 

  • Did you achieve everything you wanted to achieve, or is it a “work in progress”?  Sometimes, other factors mean that compromises have to be made, and you might feel that you have only made a “partial improvement”. 

    While that can feel frustrating, you should also recognise the success you have achieved.  Once the benefits of a partial improvement can be seen and measured, they can also be built on.  Seeing things improve might result in future resource investment from the PSA at a later date or motivate other people in the community to get involved in improvements.

Have there been any other outcomes?

  • Were there any “unintended outcomes”? Unintended outcomes are things that you hadn’t planned.  They might have been improvements introduced by the PSA as part of the outcome improvement process, that you hadn’t thought about.  The People First case study on our website demonstrates a PR that resulted in longer term outcomes the group hadn’t anticipated.

  • There could also be wider things that happened as a result of the outcome improvement, that weren’t planned.  For example, improvements to a play area that included seating areas might have resulted in local parents meeting up and sitting together, forming networks and reducing loneliness and isolation.  Or it might have resulted in teenagers gathering there in the evenings and highlighting that there’s a need for a safe space for them to meet in.

What are the lessons we have learned?

  • If you were to do this again, what were the things that worked well that you would want to see happen again, or that you would build on?

  • How good was the outcome improvement process? Were you meaningfully involved, and were your views given proper consideration?

  • Has the process led to better a better relationship between your group and the public body?

  • Is there anything you would do differently or change? Can you think of things you would put in place to help make things better next time round?

  • Are there other communities who can learn from your experience?  If there are other groups working on PRs, or looking to make similar improvements, would you be willing to share your knowledge and experience with them?

The answers to these questions will help you to know whether the success you have achieved is likely to continue. For instance, if the process was good and has led to a better relationship with the public body, you should find it easier to raise any issues in future and work together to do something about them.

You may also find the Social Studios Participation Request Toolkit’s Measuring Progress and Real Time Report resources useful at this point.

What do we need to do now?

  • It is important that the community know what’s happening or is planned, especially if the improvements won’t be immediately visible. You can play an important role in communicating with the wider community to let them know what has improved or what the long-term improvement plan is.

  • Are there actions that your group has agreed to do to help with the agreed change? See the case study of SDS Borders Forum for an example of this.

  • Will you stay involved as part of a process to review how things are going? Or example, if there is a long-term plan in place, will there be a 6 monthly or annual review meeting where you will get together with the PSA to look at what has been achieved or what challenges are getting in the way of progress?

See the “Building on Success” part of our Going Forward guide  for more ideas.

 

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