Archetypes to Avoid: Project models that prevent effective facilitation

This blog post was contributed by Engineers Without Borders Canada following Breakfast Seminar #71 on July 26, 2012.

Breakfast Seminar #71 Driving Organizational Change: Taking the Value Chain Approach from Principles to Practice outlined the foundational elements, organizational structures and processes necessary for effective implementation of a market facilitation approach, and also identified common operating modes of less effective market facilitation projects with suggestions of how to move forward.

Mina Shahid from Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB) opened the discussion by sharing a working definition for effective market facilitation, stating that projects that are effective at value chain development share three important characteristic. They are non-linear, exist to create win-win market system change for all actors, and depend on innovative activities which are inherently a result of the project’s ability to institutionalize continuous learning and adaptation.

Shahid then identified four common operating archetypes that prevent projects from effectively implementing a market facilitation approach. The first archetype, Bolt-On, occurs when a project is not initially designed to take a value chain approach but desires to make a change after implementation has began. This results in a project trying to do market facilitation but half-heartedly due to donor constraints from the initial project design, low staff capacity, and little opportunity for flexibility or adaptability in annual work plans. He suggests that one fix for this mode is to set realistic goals, understanding that market facilitation has been “bolted-on” to an existing project. Furthermore, project management should invest in building staff capacity and conviction for the facilitation approach and may need to realign expectations with the project’s donor.

The second archetype, Achieving Failure, is a result of a project rigidly following prescribed activities although they may not be creating market systems change. This stems from a variety of factors including a lack of freedom to innovate by project staff, a lack of conviction amongst project staff for market facilitation, and especially a lack of visionary leadership within the project management. In this situation, project staff may need to be reassigned to different roles and the project may need to take a break from implementation to redesign their strategy for effectively doing market facilitation. In the case where the project’s management team lacks the conviction or capacity for facilitation, the donor may need to step in to make some changes to avoid achieving failure.

The third archetype, The Outsourcer, results when a market facilitation project outsources different implementation activities to separate sub-contractors. The result is that the project strategy becomes disjointed and instead of taking a systemic approach, the project compartmentalizes its activities. In this case, project managers needs to play the role of systems analysts, bringing together all sub-contractors and encouraging collaboration, for example, by directly embedding sub-contractors into the project structure, or by creating teams across different sub-contractors.

The fourth archetype, No Dirty Laundry, results when a project’s organizational culture has been developed to refrain from sharing failures and subsequently learning. This likely results from management and donor perception that failure is not a learning opportunity, but is something that should be avoided. In order to continuously improve, project management should reward learning from failure, and encourage sharing amongst project staff by leading by example.

Throughout the presentation, Shahid analysed each project archetype and how it relates to the foundational elements, structures, and processes for effective market facilitation. He closed the presentation with a discussion asking participants to share experiences of how they have individually overcome the challenges of operating in a particular project archetype.