Institutional Learning and Change Initiative

The following text is drawn from Guijt and Woodhill (2002).

Rich pictures (or mind maps)

The purpose of this method is to make a pictorial representation of the elements that need to be considered or are important to a particular (project) situation, including stakeholders and issues, and the interactions and connections between them. From an M&E perspective, a rich picture can help identify what aspects of a situation need to be monitored, which change indicators to track and/or which key stakeholders need to be included in the M&E efforts.

A rich picture helps to open discussion and come to a broad, shared understanding of a situation. It does not tell you what has changed, although this may come up in discussion, and therefore is best used as an initial exercise in an annual project review or when designing the M&E system with different stakeholders.

Think carefully about whom to include in a group. If you want to have a representative picture, then the composition of the group will be different than if you want to have focused perspectives to compare.

Source: Guijt, I. and J. Woodhill (2002). Managing for Impact in Rural Development : A guide for project M & E. Rome, Italy: International Fund for Agricultural Development http://www.ifad.org/evaluation/guide/index.htm