Emerging Institutional Change

Using Portfolio Sensemaking to dynamically manage the UNDP Malawi’s Governance Portfolio (pt. one)

Context

Dynamic portfolio management allows an organisation to develop a continuous learning loop between planning, experience and action so they can evolve with their environment and accelerate the effects of their work.

In January 2021, CHÔRA Foundation and UNDP Malawi embarked on a nine-month journey to build processes and capabilities that would allow UNDP Malawi to manage its governance portfolio dynamically, and in doing so, accelerate the effects of its governance initiatives. This project builds on CHÔRA previous collaboration with UNDP Malawi in 2020 as well as CHÔRA’s earlier work on Portfolio Sensemaking with UNDP regional and country offices across the world in 2019.

The aim of this particular project was to support UNDP Malawi to develop a coherent governance portfolio that both leverages their core capabilities and increases the probability of their initiatives to induce system-wide effects. The project itself was structured into three interlinking phases, where each phase included one round of Sensemaking, and each new Sensemaking round built upon the insights of previous rounds.

The first Baseline Sensemaking held in February 2021, brought together internal UNDP Malawi stakeholders and established a shared sense of what its governance Portfolio entailed. The Sensemaking process also identified starting points to manage this Portfolio dynamically, including identifying the need to cluster together projects that either engage in similar governance spaces or build on a similar set of capabilities.

The second round of Sensemaking, held in April 2021, built on the results of the Baseline Sensemaking by further defining the Portfolio Clusters, i.e., Responsible and Accountable Institutions; Citizen Engagement and Empowerment; and Oversight Mechanisms. Insights from this Bridging Sensemaking also identified the need to focus efforts on the nexus of governance, digitalisation, and decentralisation.

In addition to UNDP Malawi’s internal team, this Sensemaking round also brought together representatives of government and development partners as observers.

The final Sensemaking, held in July 2021, focused on leveraging UNDP Malawi’s governance Portfolio to generate policy advice, with a particular focus on governance and digitalization. This round of Sensemaking also included shared experiences from other United Nations entities, government, and development partners. The results from this Sensemaking round were subsequently used to develop a Policy Proposition to shape UNDP’s future governance portfolio.

Visualising Interconnectivity

As a result of these processes, several institutional changes within UNDP Malawi have begun to emerge. One of these significant changes is how UNDP Malawi has come to view the interconnectedness of its portfolio of initiatives. As part of the Baseline Sensemaking round, Chôra and UNDP Malawi put together a visual representation of UNDP Malawi’s governance portfolio framed within the problem space in which they worked, and how this portfolio has evolved over time (see image below).

This visual representation of the portfolio helped UNDP Malawi see both the potential interconnectedness of its various initiatives as well as the gaps they needed to close. The visualisation of the portfolio’s evolution also helped UNDP Malawi to comprehensively see changes in the composition of their portfolio and where they are positioned within the problem space that they intend to address.

The Baseline Sensemaking round helped UNDP Malawi identify the effects it wanted its governance portfolio to have; it wanted to contribute to building accountable institutions, an engaged civil society, and effective service delivery. This initial Sensemaking round also helped identify where UNDP Malawi needed to position itself to achieve these intended effects.

Designing Strategic Prototypes

Based on these insights and building on the synergies across its existing initiatives, UNDP Malawi then designed six prototype projects that would allow it to strategically respond to the developments of Malawi’s governance space. Three of these six prototype projects were subsequently developed, funded, and implemented under UNDP’s initiation plan modality. This modality allowed UNDP to implement these prototype projects as pilots for 18 months. These pilots included a futures and foresight project conducted in collaboration with Malawi’s National Planning Commission; a public sector innovation initiative; and a platform for citizen engagement.

The process of designing these pilot projects brought together different elements of UNDP Malawi’s team that previously seldom had opportunities to closely collaborate. This led to UNDP Malawi’s recognition that it could redefine how its programs were packaged. Moreover, UNDP Malawi realized that delivering a cohesive, interconnected portfolio of governance initiatives would require a different team structure.

Structuring the Team

Based on the lessons learned from the design process of the pilots, UNDP Malawi subsequently restructured its Governance team around three Portfolio Clusters identified in the second round of Sensemaking: Responsible and Accountable Institutions; Citizen Engagement and Empowerment; and Oversight Mechanisms. Each cluster contained team members of programs that worked on similar issues, and upon its formation, each cluster conducted “mini-sensemaking sessions” to discuss insights, challenges, and solutions in their particular problem spaces. These clusters were designed as a lighter, more informal, and likely more sustainable way to integrate Portfolio Sensemaking into the UNDP Malawi team’s daily work.

At the end of CHÔRA’s nine-month project with UNDP Malawi, the Portfolio Clusters - now called Pillars – were preparing to develop their annual work plan. In doing so, the Pillars drew from insights and action briefs developed in previous Sensemaking round to structure their intended activity results, implementing partners, and next actions.

Charting a new path

While institutional adoption of Dynamic Portfolio Management as a practice will likely require a much longer journey, the structure of this nine-month immersion allowed UNDP Malawi to adjust, adapt, and integrate elements of the approach into its own organisational structures and processes. This in turn contributed to several institutional changes that have emerged organically during the project period. Firstly, the visualisation of UNDP Malawi’s governance portfolio helped the team see its various initiatives as a cohesive set of interconnected efforts working within a defined problem space. Secondly, through the Sensemaking rounds, UNDP Malawi identified specific positive effects that it wanted its governance portfolio to have, and it effectively utilised its own organisational resources to swiftly design, fund, and implement three strategic prototypes that would position UNDP Malawi to achieve these effects. Finally, upon recognising that clustering similar initiatives enabled better sharing of insights, resources, and networks, UNDP Malawi reorganised its governance team around these Portfolio Clusters and used this structure for further planning of its activities. These emerging changes will hopefully help UNDP Malawi to not only develop a cohesive portfolio of governance initiatives, but to also be agile in responding to Malawi’s development landscape.

Read part 2 for a closer look at the link between sensemaking and anticipatory governance capabilities.