ABCD-Training-of-Trainers-Tools-July-2013

Step 5:
Review and organize the stories: With a representative group of community members, review and
organize these stories into the “domains” created in step 1. Additional domains may have to be
created.
Step 6:
Analyzing and summarizing the findings in a way that can be presented back to the community: Try to
draw out common themes, as well as differences in what people consider significant. Summarize the
results. With community members, select a few stories that seem to capture the most significant
change.
Step 7:
Verifying the findings and feeding it back to the community: Give feedback to all members of the
community for discussion and verification. This will be used to help them decide what to do next.
Step 8:
Sharing the findings with a wider audience: A synthesis and summary of the findings can be presented
to other stakeholders such as government, donors etc.
Note: While this technique produces qualitative data, another step could be to quantify the information.
For example, let us suppose a significant change was the fact that a woman was able to get title to land.
The next step would be to find out how many women had been able to do this. This information could
be found in the government land registry office, or, if the community is small enough, by asking village
elders, or community members. The important thing is that we do not waste time collecting
quantitative information until we know what are considered the significant changes. The quantitative
data may be important for informing local government or donors, and it may also be important for
helping communities assess more precisely the effort required to get particular results.
Instructions on how to use this tool during the training of trainers
Since all the participants have this ABCD training experience in common, the “Most Significant Change”
technique can be used to learn from the experience they all share.
Ask the participants to get into teams of 4-5. In each team, every person should think about the
following question:
• What is the most significant change for you since coming to this training?
All team members should then take turns to tell the team:
• The most significant change I have experienced since coming to this training
• A story that illustrates that change
• The reason why I think that this is THE most significant change
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