Building a Team Culture for Adaptive Management in MSD: 5 Strategies MEL Managers Say Work
- Partner: USAID Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP), DAI
- Publication Type: Learning Brief
- Date: May 31, 2023
- Team: Anna Garloch (MarketShare Associates) with Henok Begashaw (iDE), Dania Hussein (independent), Raul Pitoro (DAI), and Ajla Vilogorac (Palladium)
- Recommended Citation: Building a Team Culture for Adaptive Management in MSD: 5 Strategies MEL Managers Say Work. Washington, D.C.: United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Prepared by Anna Garloch, Henok Begashaw, Dania Hussein, Raul Pitoro, and Ajla Vilogorac for DAI through the Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP) Activity, 2023
Adaptive management is a critical component of successfully implementing a market systems development (MSD) approach. And yet, putting that into practice in the day-to-day it can raise challenging questions.
To tackle these challenges, four senior Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Managers came together to exchange experiences. This paper summarizes five practical strategies to build a culture among teams that enables the use of an MSD approach. The strategies are:
- Cultivate capacity in the MEL team to have a ‘journalistic style.’
- Invest in sensing early signs of change.
- Make sure staff are clear what it is they should be looking for—and involve nontraditional sources.
- Use and revisit CLA plans to provide structure and accountability.
- Model healthy feedback loops in how the MEL team interacts with the broader team.
This learning brief was originally published by the USAID Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP) Activity on Agrilinks on May 31, 2023.
