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add a title: what is this about?
MEETING MINUTES LEARNING & MONITORING TEAM - INCLUDING POSSIBLE TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR A CONSULTANT TO SYNTHESISE IFAD-FUNDED KM4DEV ACTIVITIES 2011-2013
 
Agenda:
1. Intro and context
2. Reviewing the activities to document
3. The online learning meeting across L&M, SNA, CTLab, core group?
 
Participants: Melissa, Simone, Sophie, Ewen.
Reading afterwards: Peter
 
===============
 
1. Intro and context
 
add some context here: what is this about?
 
Questions Melissa:
  • You worked mostly on setting up the survey? --> Yes, and devising how we want to work with L&M - in the end deciding to keep it simple.
  • Volunteer respondents to the survey? --> Yes we circulated the link on Dgroup, Ning.
 
Ewen's update: agreed on steps for survey, established liaisons with other projects groups (e.g., CTLab), now need to plan next steps- inform how we may want to develop the KM 4Dev community- we need to come back to the community with some questions, so we can get a discussion going [develop KM4Dev in what way?]
 
How can we get feedback from the L&M report [link to the report?]? We got none directly with the publishing- probably due to fatigue- 
At this point we may not want to get feedback yet- a better approach may be to join and process recommendations from all groups (CT labs, SNA, etc) and try to get feedback from a more integrated set of recommendations
 
2. Reviewing the activities to document
 
  • SNA work (Pete/Natalie/Graham): Melissa (+ Willem / Sophie).
  • CT Lab work (Mark, Riff, Peter B): Ewen + ?
  • Focused conversation 1 "KS in orgs" (Gauri, Chase, Lucie): Simone + ?
  • Focused conversation 2 "positive deviants" (Ewen): Sophie + ?
  • Crowdsourcing on the KS toolkit (Simone, Nancy): Melissa + Ewen.
  • It's not IFAD-funded but it has a lot of potential for the community and it seems like it came at an interesting moment aside from IFAD funding. 
 
Suggestion on how to carrry out: simple After Action Review (AAR) + other questions that seem helpful. Perhaps including the main points from L&M report here: http://wiki.km4dev.org/KM4Dev_Learning_and_Monitoring_2012-2013
 
3. The online learning meeting across L&M, SNA, CTLab
 
Sophie discussed with SNA folks the option to use remaining IFAD funds to get help from someone to look at the results from all of this work (SNA/L&M/CTLab) and to do some cross-analysis from an external view... An outsider might have an interesting perspective. This was presented at a core group meeting. How was it received? No definitive answer.
 
It would be a good idea and there was motivation to do this to avoid conflicts of interest and to synthesize more easily. The amount of details between L&M and SNA is very different. It might be easier to have an outsider synthesize this work.
 
Melissa: good to have someone from the KM4Dev community. This echoes the request for more leadership from the community. [maybe there is not enough leadership because (1) the core group is too big with not clear TOR and (2) we refrain from pushing for leadership within the core group?]
 
Simone agrees.
 
Possible inputs to the IFAD introspection synthesis consultancy ToR:
  • Profile: Knowledgeable in KM
  • Profile: Knowing KM4Dev community without being invovled in IFAD grant
  • Profile: Analytical skills, evaluation skills
  • TOR?
  • Output: short written summary with key insights (2 pager) and process plan for an online event to share results [with whom? how?] and discuss ways forward [the discussion should be led by a core core group] 
  • TOR: Review the three studies and synthesize overlaps, common questions and implications for the community.
  • TOR: Facilitate the online event that is led by core core group
  • ??? What to work with? Reports, raw data (but not SNA)
  • Time: a week (3 days going through information, interviewing for additional info, 1 day writing up, process mapping, 1 day online meeting + synthesis of that).
  • Output: Include crowdsourcing event [outcomes?] in evaluation.
 
ACTION POINTS:
  • Share this meeting minutes with core group and ask for comments by Sunday (ELB).
  • Follow up on activities to review (see above).
  • Share these minutes with the rest of the L&M group [and the SNA and CTLab group and maybe even with those who led other activities such as focus discussions] - and invite them to volunteer for monitoring certain activities (Simone).
 
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ToR
 
TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR SYNTHESIS OF MAJOR [?] IFAD-FUNDED KM4DEV ACTIVITIES [this seems something different: AND IMPLEMENTATION OF KEY RECOMMENDATIONS]    
 
The KM4Dev community has received a grant from IFAD for 2011 - March 2013, to implement a number of jointly agreed activities (a commented version of the work plan is available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AHswQl9WblchmUbxwskQtRQBfnAT_O1HjcT-NCSpbvk/edit?hl=en_GB&pli=1#heading=h.rg5xudbk43au)
Among these activities, three major endeavours have been undertaken:
  • SNA: a Social Network Analysis of the community (and of its Francophone counterpart, SA-GE)
  • CTLab: a technology stewardship-focused initiative
  • L&M: a set of 'Learning & Monitoring' activities to assess the process and results of the IFAD-funded KM4Dev activities.
 
These Terms of Reference propose to task a consultant to synthesise the results of these three major endeavours to provide a proper analysis of insights and propose and generate recommendations to KM4Dev as to how it could further develop. 
This synthesis work might be structured as a "loose" After Action Review - or any other form of assessment deemed relevant. 
The output should be a report about finding common aspects that have gone very well in the community, and things that bear improvement, as well as a first attempt at ways ahead to resolve some gaps. The report should lead to "issues" and recommendations to discuss with representatives of the three project groups and the core group. 
 
Work plan:
The work plan suggested for the consultant would entail the following activities:
  • Review the three studies (SNA, CT Lab and L&M) and synthesize overlaps, common questions and implications for the community
  • Possibly interview key resource persons to collect additional information about the aforementioned activities
  • Write a summary of insights and recommendations from the three initiatives and a process plan to help a group spanning members from the three projects and KM4Dev core group members to analyse and decide about key recommendations to share with the KM4Dev community
  • Organize and facilitate an online event bringing together members from the groups mentioned above
  • Synthesize the discussion and share it with all groups mentioned above
The KM4Dev core group will see to it that the decisions made during that discussion are shared with community members for feedback and further refinement.
 
Outputs expected:
  • A short written summary (2-4 pages / 1200 words maximum) bringing about key insights and potential recommendations from the three pieces of work 
  • A process plan (1 page / 500 words maximum) suggesting how to go about an online event to share results and discuss ways forward 
  • The organization and facilitation of an online event of 2 to 3 hours where key recommendations are discussed
  • A discussion synthesis note about the online event conclusions
All outputs should be documented on the KM4Dev wiki and when appropriate shared with the community via the Dgroup and the Ning site.
 
Consultant profile requirements:
The consultant should comply with the following requirements: 
  • Knowledgeable about knowledge management for development
  • Ideally be a member of the KM4Dev community but preferably not a core group member. At any rate s/he should know the KM4Dev community without having been involved in IFAD-funded activities
  • Strong in analytical and evaluation skills
  • Strong in synthesizing writing
  • Capable to organize events
  • Capable to facilitate the online event - if required with support from participating members
 
 
Budget and payments
The activites mentioned are estimated to take a week:
  • 3 days to collect and synthesisingze data and insights, including interviews
  • 1 day for writing up summary from the three initiatives and mapping the process
  • 1 day for organizing, facilitating and documenting the online meeting
The daily fee rate proposed for this work is USD 500 for this work.
 
Payment will be made in two installments: one installment (30% upon signature of the contract), the remaining 70% upon completion of the work and delivery of all agreed outputs.
 
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