DIY Learn Module of the Month: Evidence Planning

Last year, in partnership with the Open University, we launched DIY Learn - a new online learning programme in innovation. Developed with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, DIY Learn features a collection of ten bite-sized modules that teach you how to use the tools and methods from Nesta’s popular DIY Toolkit.

We created the DIY Toolkit to help development practitioners invent, adopt or adapt ideas that can deliver better results, and DIY Learn is the next step in this support. With a lot of online content on innovation already out there, it can be difficult to know what is really useful. DIY Learn cuts through this, focusing on the most widely used tools in the DIY Toolkit.

Over the past few months, we’ve been showcasing each module from DIY Learn here on the Nesta website, and our penultimate Module of the Month is the Evidence Planning tool.

Evidence Planning

The Evidence Planning tool is a quick way to help articulate and improve what you are trying to accomplish. It gives you an easy way to define and share what it is that you’re trying to do, and the assumptions and evidence upon which this is based. By making you think more broadly about your work’s effect on beneficiaries, society, other activities and organisations, Evidence Planning helps you construct an evidence-based case for the impact you want to have.

The DIY Learn module will help you to understand why evidence planning is used, and how you can apply it in your own context to gain insight that will help you move forward. By taking the module, you will be able to:

  • describe what evidence planning is and when you would use it
  • understand the Evidence Planning tool and its usefulness for constructing an evidence base for the impact of a project, organisation or business
  • explain the difference between implicit and explicit assumptions
  • use evidence planning to identify your mistakes, and what you want to retain and change

Watch the Evidence Planning module introductory video below, or go straight to the module.

We estimate this module will take between two and three hours to complete for an independent learner with a good level of English. It is divided into smaller study sessions, each of which follows a standard pattern to make it easier for you to plan your time. As you work through the module there are some in-text activities to help test your understanding of the material, and it finishes with a series of self-assessment questions.

Feedback and further resources

We hope that you enjoy the module, and we’re always delighted to hear from our learners. Please send feedback on the module to [email protected]. We are particularly keen to hear what you have done with the skills and tools you have learned.While the module has been designed to be studied independently this is not the only way it can be used. The DIY Learn Trainers Handbook also provides guidance on using all the modules as a basis for group training in a classroom setting.

Take the module >>

Part of
DIY Learn

Author

Isobel Roberts

Isobel Roberts

Isobel Roberts

Content and Communications Manager, Innovation Skills

Isobel worked in the Innovation Skills team as Content and Communications Manager, helping to build Nesta's learning and development offering.

View profile