TOC maps out your initiative through five stages:
- Identifying long-term goals and the assumptions behind them
- Backwards mapping to work out all the the requirements necessary to achieve that goal (outcomes/preconditions).
- Identifying the interventions necessary to achieve the desired outcomes.
- Developing indicators to measure progress on outcomes and to assess performance
- Writing a narrative to explain the logic of your initiative.
TOC process hinges upon defining all of the necessary and sufficient conditions required to bring about a given long term outcome. Backwards mapping requires planners to reason backwards from the long-term goal through the intermediate and early-term changes necessary to reach the goal. This process creates a set of connected outcomes known as a “pathway of change.” A “pathway of change” graphically represents the change process as it is understood by the initiative planners and forms the skeleton around which the other elements of the theory may be developed.
During the process of creating the pathway of change, participants articulate as many of their assumptions about the change process as they can. Assumptions can then be examined and weighed for accuracy. There are typically three important types of assumptions to consider: (a) conditions in the environment that planners believe must hold true for the theory to be fulfilled; (b) substantiation for the claim that all of the important preconditions for success have been identified; and (c) justifications supporting the links between program activities and the outcomes they are expected to produce. A TOC-based monitoring and evaluation system will test both expected outcomes and underlying assumptions against the model.
TOC approach to planning is designed to encourage very clearly defined outcomes at every step of the change process. Users are required to specify a number of details about the nature of the desired change, including specifics about the target population, the amount of change required to signal success, and the time frame over which such change is expected to occur. This attention to detail often helps both funders and grantees reassess the feasibility of reaching goals that may have been vaguely defined, and in the end, promotes the development of reasonable long-term outcome targets that are acceptable to all parties.
