Documenting change : an introduction to process documentation

Documenting change is a vitally important activity for learning from and improving upon the work carried out in development initiatives. While collecting information and analysing key activities and outcomes of a project do provide initial insights, documenting how a change process unfolds (and not just their outcomes) can provide strong (and new) insights for practice and learning. This is achieved by highlighting factors that lead to an initiative’s outcomes. In this Occasional Paper, IRC consolidates lessons learned across a range of IRC projects and describes the resultant and emerging understanding of how process documentation can promote learning and action through joint reflection and analysis. This Occasional Paper also offers tools for collecting and presenting observations that stimulate reflection, learning and sharing. The lessons, concepts and tools presented in this paper are relevant for project designers, managers and field staff members involved in conducting monitoring and communications tasks. This paper may also be of interest for donors as it provides an example of enhanced forms of documentation that enables more effective monitoring, evaluation and sharing of lessons.