Forests Sourcebook - HCV Resource Network

NOTE 4.3
Using Adaptive Management to Improve
Project Implementation
Conservation and development interventions take
place in complex systems influenced by biological,
political, social, economic, and cultural factors. 1
Project managers and practitioners operating within these
complex systems must make important decisions, yet they
often have limited information and are operating in the face
of uncertainty. This complexity is compounded at the landscape
scale, where a larger geographical space, including all
functions and processes and additional institutions
involved, needs to be considered. The approach adopted at
the landscape level needs to be flexible and able to accommodate
new information and changing contexts (see chapter
4, Optimizing Forest Functions in a Landscape). This
note addresses the use of an adaptive management
approach to project implementation, a method for making
more informed decisions about strategies, testing the effectiveness
of strategies used, and learning and adapting to
improve the strategies (Lee 1993; Gunderson, Holling, and
Light 1995).
OVERVIEW AND CONSIDERATIONS
OF INTEREST FOR WORLD BANK ACTIVITIES
Adaptive management stands in contrast to traditional
project and program management by requiring an explicitly
experimental—or scientific—approach. Specifically, adaptive
management is the integration of design, management,
and monitoring to systematically test assumptions to adapt
and learn (Salafsky, Margoluis, and Redford 2001). There
are three main components to adaptive management:
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Testing assumptions. Assumption testing involves systematically
trying different activities to achieve a desired outcome
and is distinct from a random trial-and-error
process. It requires clearly and explicitly articulating
assumptions underlying the way in which proposed activities
will help achieve project goals and objectives to strategically
select project actions. The outcomes of the activities
are monitored to compare the actual to the predicted outcome.
This enables the project team to understand what
worked, but more important, why it was effective.
Adaptation. Several reasons may underlie the unexpected
outcome of a project activity (for example, the project
assumptions were wrong, the actions were poorly executed,
the conditions at the project site changed, the
monitoring was faulty—or some combination of these
problems). Adaptation involves reviewing and, where
relevant, changing assumptions and interventions to
respond to the new information obtained through monitoring
efforts.
Learning. Learning involves systematically documenting
a project team’s process and results. The aim is to avoid
making similar mistakes in the future and to share lessons
learned with the broader community of practice.
The explicit and systematic testing of assumptions is the
key facet of adaptive management that helps project teams
uncover why a project was successful or faced setbacks and
whether it was due to poor theory and underlying assumptions,
poor implementation, or a combination of the two
(see figure 4.1).
There are at least two levels at which program managers
could apply adaptive management: (i) at a high programmatic
level, to help them determine the strategies and types of projects
they should support and how well their portfolio of projects
is doing; and (ii) at the project level, to help the initiatives
they support go through an adaptive management process.
This note focuses on the second of these levels, although the
adaptive management process is important for both.
OPERATIONAL ASPECTS
For the purposes of explaining the adaptive management
process, we use a cycle adapted from the Conservation Mea-
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