OMLC Learning Lab 2025 | Outcome Mapping

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Enhancing participatory, learning-oriented MEL in an age of bricolage

Join us at the OMLC Learning Lab 2025 to explore bricolage: the practice of blending parts of methods, tools and ways of thinking!

1-3 December, 2025. Citrus Waskaduwa, Sri Lanka.

Early bird prices extended to 19 October 2025!

The Learning Lab will be a space for practitioners of Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting and other participatory, learning-oriented and methods. Through sharing our experiences and case studies, we will explore how combining well known and emerging approaches can lead to more meaningful, rigorous insights into systems-change processes. We will also reflect on how to foster meaningful participation and learning in MEL practice.

Why focus on bricolage of participatory, learning-oriented MEL for systems-change?

Growing enthusiasm for approaches to MEL that can help us grapple with complexity, requires moving debates and practice beyond the selection of single method options.
Making sense of the methodological landscape: the context for each MEL application informs which methodological blends are appropriate, yet the number of potential methods to draw on is vast.
Each method has its strengths, and limitations, such as needing to monitor change beyond the sphere of influence when OM is your primary method, or when you need to monitor attitude change when OH is your primary method.
Various methods have differing views on causality and knowing. Some may be complementary, others not. How can we make sense of the options?
Credibility and rigour of such methods is often challenged yet can be enhanced through bricolage.

Over three days by the sea in Sri Lanka, we will engage in a dynamic mix of expert-led sessions, practical cases from participants, and open space dialogues, co-creating knowledge, surfacing questions, and challenging assumptions.

We welcome all - practitioners at any level, academics, MEL practitioners in organisations, consultants, and methods enthusiasts - who want to explore bricolage for systems change.

The programme will be finalised after receiving feedback from participants based on their potential contributions and interests. As well as pre-planned sessions, space will be kept free for emerging topics. The three days will look something like (subject to change)...

Monday - we connect, share our values and experiences and engage with promising cases of bricolage.
Tuesday - we continue to explore bricolage cases and processes, wrestling with our collective questions and challenges. We finish the day off with conversations and connections at a social event.
Wednesday - we provide space for common interests and opportunities on the ‘frontiers of practice’. We grapple with remaining questions and package our learning to support others into the future.

The programme will not include introductions to methods as we assume all participants will have experience with one or more relevant methods. Optionally, we hope to be able to offer short introductions online to the topic of Bricolage and methods such as OM, OH and MSC. So keep an eye out for introductions and teasers offered prior to the Learning Lab in Sri Lanka!

Registration is now closed

Step 1: Apply for registration by completing the application form by 19 October 2025.

This will help us understand your interests and potential contributions.

Step 2: If your application is approved, you will receive an approval email and instructions on how to pay the registration fee. Fees have to be paid within 15 days to secure your place.

Step 3: Upon receipt of fees you will be sent an invitation letter and a link to complete your registration.

Step 4: If your registration includes accommodation then you will receive a booking confirmation after you have completed registration.

Registration includes

Three-day Learning Lab programme
Lunches and refreshments on workshop days
An evening welcome reception
Course materials
Pre-event online sessions
Four nights' accommodation and airport transfers (optional*)

* Accommodation is limited. Rooms will be booked on a first come first served basis.

Registration fees

With accommodation and transfers

Without accommodation and transfers

Full fee (regular rate )

Full fee (reduced rate )

Early bird fee (regular rate)

Early bird (reduced rate)

EUR 1050

EUR 570

EUR 875

EUR 475

EUR 660

EUR 180

EUR 550

EUR 150

Choose reduced rate if you consider yourself from the global south or working with a national / local non-profit organisation.
Choose regular rate if you consider yourself from the global north or working in an international organisation, funder, consultancy or private sector (you will be helping to support participants from the global south or those working in national / local non-profit organisations)
Early bird fee rate is available until 30 September 2025 19 October 2025

This event is for anyone curious about methods for evaluation, monitoring and learning for systems change

We welcome practitioners at any level, academics, MEL specialists in organisations, consultants, and methods enthusiasts; anyone who wants to explore bricolage for systems change.

If you identify with any of the personas below then this event is for you.

Are you a...

black-silhouette-of-an-ivy-branch-botani

Bricolage tree

Do you routinely and systematically blend ideas and tools from different methods in your MEL practice, and are interested to share and exchange with others and explore complementarities and incompatibilities in the epistemology (ways of knowing) and ontology (underlying assumptions about reality and causality) inherent in different methods and the implications for your practice?

Bricolage vine

Perhaps you instinctively combine parts of methods but without reference to any framework for deciding when and how to do so, and are curious to share what has worked for you and systematiseand the systematise your practice by learning from others?

Bricolage shrub

Have you thought about, read about, heard stories about, or even started to blend ideas and tools from different methods in your MEL practice, and want to take this further but face practical challenges / questions about deciding when and how to do so in real-world situations?

Bricolage seedling

Do you generally adapt single methods in your MEL practice but are curious to develop your MEL practitioner capabilities by exploring a more fluid approach by blending ideas and tools from various methods?

Bricolage canopy

Are you supporting or influencing MEL practice at an institutional level—designing frameworks, guiding teams, or shaping donor requirements—and looking to create space for methodological blending while managing constraints of standardization and accountability?

Event news and announcements

Bricolage and Systems Change: Webinar recording

Oct 20
2 min read

We were joined last week by Emily Gates and Pablo Vidueira in the final webinar in our series on bricolage. Watch the recording or read a brief summary below (developed with AI assistance).

In their presentation, Emily Gates and Pablo Vidueira defined systemic change not as a simple fix to isolated problems, but as a deep, participatory, and adaptive process aimed at addressing the root causes of dynamic situations.

They presented systemic change as a non-linear process involving several key phases:

Exploring the situation and envisioning change.
Mapping systems to understand interrelationships.
Designing portfolios of initiatives that work at different scales.
Navigating futures using strategic foresight.
Evaluating, learning, and adapting is central to all phases.

They emphasised that success is not a fixed destination but is defined throughout the journey. The speakers emphasize that how success is defined is more important than the definition itself, requiring a participatory process that includes multiple dimensions and values.

They argued that evaluating such change requires bricolage—the pragmatic and context-driven combination of different methods—to navigate complexity and engage diverse perspectives.

Rather than providing a rigid roadmap, they outlined five core design considerations for a collaborative "evaluative inquiry":

Purpose: Being clear on why the evaluation is being conducted (e.g., for accountability, learning, or adaptation).
Questions: Framing genuine questions that stakeholders are invested in answering.
Value Bases: Explicitly defining what success and value mean in the specific context.
Evidence: Thoughtfully combining different forms of evidence (the bricolage piece) to answer the questions.
Sense-making: Engaging in a collective process to interpret the findings and determine the next steps.

During the discussion, the presenters and OMLC Coordinator, Simon Hearn, connected these concepts to Outcome Mapping:

OM's Strengths: OM naturally aligns with a systems perspective by shifting focus from an intervention's goals to a collective vision for the system and the behaviors of different actors ("boundary partners").
Existing Bricolage: The development of Outcome Harvesting (OH) is an example of bricolage. OH was created to capture emergent outcomes in complex environments where a pre-defined theory of change (as used in OM) might be too rigid.
Future Bricolage: A potential area for future bricolage is combining OM with methods for "navigating futures," such as scenario planning, to strengthen strategic adaptation.

Pre-event webinars announced

Oct 8
1 min read

Updated: Oct 20

Registered participants of the OMLC Learning Lab 2025 will be invited to participate in a series of pre-event webinars to introduce MEL methods. The idea is to give participants an opportunity to understand methods which they may be unfamiliar with so they can come to the Learning Lab ready to engage in discussions about bricolage without taking up valuable face to face time going over the basics of individual methods.

We have arranged experienced practitioners and trainers to provide eight introduction sessions on the following methods:

Contribution Analysis (Marina Apgar with Thomas Delahais)
Most Significant Change (Theo Nabben & Cecilia Ruberto)
Process Tracing (Tom Aston)
Realist Evaluation (Gill Westhorp)
Outcome Mapping (Esther Kihoro and Julius Nyangaga)
Outcome Harvesting (Jeph Mathias and Michelle Garred)
Photovoice (Tiffany Fairey)
Narrative Inquiry & SenseMaking (Steff Deprez)

Learning Lab participants will be provided with registration details for the pre-event webinars. If you're not attending the Learning Lab then you will still be able to benefit from these sessions as we'll be publishing the recordings in our resource library after the event.

Outcome Mapping and Bricolage: Webinar recording

Oct 8
1 min read

Last week OMLC Stewards Mariam Smith and Simon Hearn were joined by Sarah Earl and Julius Nyangaga to discuss the development and ongoing adaptation of Outcome Mapping through the lens of bricolage.

As an intern in the 1990's at the International Development Research Centre, Sarah was instrumental in combining ideas and tools from other fields to a new approach to monitoring and evaluation which became Outcome Mapping as we know it now. Julius was introduced to Outcome Mapping in 2005 and supported countless organisations and programmes across the world to apply and adapt the approach. Together they tell the story of bricolage in Outcome Mapping and engage with participants to explore ongoing ideas and challenges in combining OM with other approaches.

Reminder: Our final webinar in the current series on Bricolage is next week: Bricolage and Systems Change with Emily Gates and Pablo Vidueira.

All previous webinars in the series:

Outcome Harvesting (and Outcome Mapping) with Attitude Change (with Michelle Garred and Jeph Mathias)
Stories that stretch us (with Jeph Mathias, Steff Deprez, Mariam Smith and Richard Smith)
Combining OM and OH (with Goele Scheers and Simon Hearn)
Bricolage and implications for Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting (with Marina Apgar and Tom Aston)

Sign up to hear first