RETHINKING SOLUTIONS WITH THE MODEL OF CHANGE

Challenging the partners at the kick-off workshop using The Model of Change not only resulted in a new evaluation approach. It also broadened the scope for solutions by bringing new types of knowledge into play that helped partners qualify the design of their solutions. Our first impression was that most groups had a hard time integrating the new contextual insights and we were rather disappointed with the initial results of the workshop as the groups presented them to us. As our fieldnotes indicate it seemed that our presentation and contextual tools had not had much impact:

[…] What generally characterizes the concepts developed by the participants in the kick-off workshop is that the user has to be active and act based on information provided by feedback technologies. The incentive for changing behaviour is generally economically and environmentally based, but for some also indoor climate. […] (Fieldnotes from workshop. Translated from Danish)

However, there were also encouraging points in the concepts that lead us to conclude that the introduction of contextual insights did help broaden the scope. One was the idea of a physical ‘filling station’ where kids and residents can go and fill up on knowledge as part of a social activity. Furthermore e.g. competitions, social media and strengthening of the local communities were mentioned as part of some of the technically-focused feedback concepts. Moreover, after the kick-off workshop the groups further developed their ideas and it seems that the context has been considered and incorporated in at least some of the final concepts as well.

An example of such a re-thought solution is to combine energy visualisation technologies with the education of selected residents to be local ambassadors (usually residents who are members of the local housing association board). The ambassadors’ role is to be proactive, meet residents where they are – e.g. the common laundry room – and share their knowledge about both energy reducing efforts and how to take part in the energy reduction project. This solution takes into account that the target group does not necessarily have the resources to engage in new technologies and energy reducing efforts on their own and may need more support and motivation than a financial benefit. This solution also considers how residents are part of a bigger social context and community in which some people have more ‘symbolic capital’ (Bourdieu 1994) and thus may act as first movers and initiators of change, while others may follow them.

Another project group re-thought their technical solution and added a practice-oriented campaign. They delivered bags of potatoes or toothbrushes outside the residents’ door with the concrete advice of not leaving the tap running while cleaning the potatoes or brushing your teeth. They also delivered showerheads that consume less water. All of these efforts draw on insights regarding how the context for the implementation of the energy visualizing technology plays an important role for the residents’ engagement with the technology. Furthermore, the concrete advice given to the residents shows insight into how energy consumption is the consequence, and not the purpose, of everyday practices in the home (Entwistle et al 2014).

The project manager of Proac has stated that our introduction of practice theory and The Model of Change with its focus on the micro level of context, perception and interaction has framed the rethinking of the initially technology-focused solutions in the Proac project. However, not all groups ended up with ‘contextualised’ solutions to the same degree as the two described above. As much as we appreciate the conclusion of the project manager, we are wary not to fall into the reductionist trap of explaining the effects of using The Model of Change in Proac (rethought solutions in the groups) by referring to our resource (the Model) alone. Other types of resources (such as time, money, the initial framework of the project, technology, access to different professional competencies)available to the three groups, and the context (e.g. earlier experiences with social scientists, organisational structures etc.) in which the model and practice theory have been applied affects the way it has been perceived and operationalised by the solution-oriented partners in the project. All these factors thus shape the solutions that they end up with. We will however conclude, that our practice-oriented approach and use of the model have played a part and we hope to inspire further use of the model by others and research more on this use in the future.

GENERATING AND USING NEW TYPES OF INSIGHTS

When we use The Model of Change together with the partners in the change theory workshops we see how this work opens up new insights about the strengths and weaknesses of the solutions that have been implemented. Figure 3 is an example of how the project groups have several reflections on their concepts that they did not have in the written case material before using The Model of Change in the workshop (shown in Figure 2). This is partly due to the categories in the model itself, which encourage these reflections, but just as importantly we facilitate and challenge the partners when they fill out the model in the workshop thereby ‘forcing’ them to consider new insights and questions. By working jointly through the different boxes of the model, discussing the statements in each, it becomes clear where partners views differ. Simple as this may sound the hands-on approach makes a difference in facilitating the negotiation of a shared understanding to frame the work in these projects. The project group becomes a community of practice (at least temporarily) engaged in defining a shared understanding. This process makes the knowledge generated have a higher impact because they themselves actively engage in the formation and shaping of it.

The Change Theory workshops also turned out to play an important role in preparing the partners for a new type of contextual insight as relevant results of the evaluation. Through the workshop they themselves experienced how this contextual knowledge was essential for them to be able to explain why and how their concepts would (not) change energy consumption in social housing. Therefore, it was easier for them to understand and incorporate the types of knowledge that was generated through the field studies, showing the importance of looking beyond the individual and the technology in itself and consider contextual factors as well. We will briefly describe examples of these insights and the attention they have been given so far in the project.

Findings from our qualitative studies in the project point out that the state of the building that the residents live in (their material context) is key to their perception of and engagement in energy reducing initiatives, just as it has an important influence on their current energy consumption. When the building is perceived as being in a poor condition (e.g. difficult to heat), the residents have different coping strategies that affect their energy consumption in a negative way. Additionally, they do not see how or why they should engage in any energy saving efforts, because they feel that they are already doing what they can within the limited scope of possibilities they have in that particular building.

These key findings would not have been generated if we had not paid close attention to the context or if we had only looked at the resident’s financial motivations or the qualities of the energy visualising technologies themselves. Figure 4 shows a matrix developed mainly by the project manager based on the findings described above. It shows the relationship between residents’ motivation and the condition of the building they live in and underlines the importance of taking both aspects into account. It is thought as a simple guide to housing associations who want to initiate efforts to reduce energy consumption.

FIGURE4: Result from evaluation in the final reporting

Focusing on both the individual human being and the context, Figure 4 is an example of a new type of evaluation result that challenges the simple assumption that has dominated the project from the beginning: technology leads to effect. Our experiences from previous similar projects shows that this simple assumption also leads to lack of interest in or ability to incorporate and use findings and knowledge that does not fit into the assumption. Findings as the ones described above are therefore not always easy to ‘sell’ to our solution-oriented partners. This, however, seems not to be the case in the Proac project. We believe this has to do with the inter-disciplinary collaboration that we have engaged in using The Model of Change. This work has prepared the solution-oriented partners for a new type of evaluation result that does not only focus on the qualities and functionalities of the technologies and (lack of) effects, but also consider the context and situated perception and use/non-use of these technologies. In Proac the project manager chooses to focus on these results in his conclusive reporting and recommendations from the project [will be publicly available in Danish in the Fall 2014].

It is too early to say how these results may affect the further development of solutions at the three test sites or in other solution-oriented projects. The effects we see in Proac have been generated in a specific context of e.g. a project manager who is positive and knowledgeable towards social sciences and with whom we have had an open, pleasant and mutually curious collaboration from the beginning. This might not be the case in other interdisciplinary projects, and as such the use of The Model of Change in other collaborations may lead to quite different results.

THE MODEL AS A SHARED ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

Using The Model of Change to bring forward change theories was not without obstacles. Through several of the partner workshops it became clear to us that some categories were easier to relate to and agree on than others. The macro categories Resources, Effort and Outcome seemed to evoke a higher degree of consensus and were easier to describe for the project partners. This is not surprising as these belong to the ‘logical’ evaluation model (Funnell & Rodgers 2011), which is well known to the partners. For some partners, the micro categories such as Perception and Interaction seemed too trivial and were harder for them to describe. In some groups, the partners struggled with being specific in relation to the required Interaction and wrote statements such as: “residents should heat up their home optimally”. These statements are very imprecise and do not take into account the key point that these are exactly the kind of ‘objective’ truths that human beings interpret and perform in so many different ways in their daily lives, depending on their knowledge, personal resources and concerns, and the social and material contexts in which they are supposed to “heat up or air out their home optimally”.

One explanation for the lack of concreteness and precision in these statements could be that our partners have not previously considered exactly what they expect their users to do with the implemented solutions (in this case technologies and feedback). Should the user turn down the thermostats half a degree? Is that what ‘optimal heating’ means? And ‘optimal’ for whom? The Model of Change helps make this otherwise hidden/inaccessible micro level visible and supports the partners in considering and describing these categories with the help of a facilitator. This attention to the micro level does not prevent the solution-oriented partners from maintaining their initial focus on the macro level, but by enabling a ‘double focus’ we believe that we are presenting the solution-oriented partners in the project with an appropriate disruption (Maturana (our translation from Danish) in Dinesen & de Wit 2013:27), a disruption that is not too big to accept and incorporate.

The visual joining of the different types of data in the Model of Change helps establish a common ground for both the explorative and the more solution-oriented foci and roles in the project and makes it visible that both parties and types of data are essential in carrying out a successful evaluation of our solutions. Working with the model also revealed differences in the partners’ ideas of what the project was actually about and what the overall evaluation questions and success criteria were. When filling out the model, they did not all agree on exactly what in their solution would bring about a reduction in energy consumption. Making these differences explicit, and offering new categories to reflect on them, gave the group a chance to discuss and reach a shared understanding across the project group. In this way The Model of Change becomes a shared analytical framework (Christensen 2013). It enables dialogue, analysis and understanding across disciplines and roles even though we have different foci, methods and responsibilities in the project. We believe that this collaboration is essential for developing sustainable solutions.

CONCLUSION

Using models such as The Model of Change usually has both the purpose and pitfall of reducing complexities and framing projects narrowly, which may not go hand in hand with anthropological work. For us, however, using this simple graphical model continuously helps us maintain the focus of our partners on the contextual factors of change and thus enables us to actively work with exploratory change theories and evaluations in our collaborations with more solution-oriented partners. Furthermore we believe that our background as anthropologists plays an important role in how we use the Model of Change together with our partners and thus in understanding why the Model of Change works the way it does when we use it in interdisciplinary projects. For example, our practice-oriented understanding of energy consumption has played an important part in unfolding and challenging the limited change theories together with our partners. Another important feature is skilled facilitation of the model in workshops and presentations and the ability to communicate across disciplines, e.g. using cases and examples from the energy and technology domain, which the solution-oriented partners can relate to. Being anthropologists gives us the tools and interest in understanding other disciplines and applying these insights in our communication with them. Last but not least it is our experience that curiosity and interest for other disciplines are features that must be present in both ourselves and the partners we work with. All in all these are the enabling mechanisms that promote the Model of Change to work the way it does in Proak.

Together with our partners in the Proac project, we have worked actively with the Model of Change in several workshops and to sum up, the most important enabling mechanisms to a successful application of the Model of Change in such an interdisciplinary project are:

1. Facilitation and interdisciplinary communication skills
2. Domain knowledge (both empirical and theoretical)
3. Project partners who are open and curious to collaborations across disciplines

Having these three key factors present in Proac, the project group has managed to use the Model of Change to introduce a new way of evaluating, which broadens the scope of change and solutions in the project. So far we have seen the results in two of the four solutions that are currently being tested. Furthermore the Model of Change brings new types of explorative and contextual knowledge into play. We believe that we could have broadened the scope of change and solutions even further had we been part of the project from the beginning, when the project proposal was written and the initial assumption of technology leads to reduced energy consumption was formulated. However, when we use the model actively together with partners in workshops we find it enables discussions about the need to consider contextual, micro level aspects of change, and it enables us to negotiate the framing of the research within the project teams more openly and equally, moving the conversation to consider different questions, and ensuring that new types of insights are included as a resource in the design process as well as in the evaluation. As such the Model of Change becomes a shared analytical framework, which enables us to learn from our experiences in these projects and create more sustainable solutions.

Johanne Mose Entwistle is the principal anthropologist at the private applied research company, the Alexandra Institute in Denmark. She received an MA in Social Anthropology from the University of Aarhus in 2008 and has been working in the intersection of people, technology and energy ever since, doing interdisciplinary R&D projects and consultancy. Johanne.mose@alexandra.dk

Mia Kruse Rasmussen works as an anthropologist at the Alexandra Institute. She is currently engaged in several national and EU funded projects, within the domains of energy and smart city, where she explores the interactions between people and technology in different settings to learn more about the ways in which people consume energy. mia.kruse@alexandra.dk

2014 Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, ISSN 1559-8918. © American Anthropological Association and Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, some rights reserved.