Webinar recording: Bricolage and implications for Outcome Mapping and Outcome Harvesting

This is the recording of a webinar held on 7 July, 2025, hosted by the Outcome Mapping Learning Community.

On 7th July we were delighted to host a webinar to warm us up for the Learning Lab 2025. We were joined by Marina Apgar and Tom Aston, authors of the paper: The Art and Craft of Bricolage in Evaluation, together with OMLC Stewards, Mariam Smith and Richard Smith. They walked us through their take on bricolage in evaluation, highlighting some key messages along the way:

• Bricolage in evaluation means combining or weaving together parts of methods to create a new approach to fit the specific evaluation context.

• Combining strengths of different methods can help meet complex needs, for example inclusion of stakeholders values and external validity.

• The challenge is to find the middle ground between building "Frankenstein designs", where "everything goes", and rigid standards or best practice guides which hinder creativity and inclusion.

• Bricolage has been part of the identity of the Outcome Mapping Learning Community since its inception, with the idea that Outcome Mapping has to adapt and evolve and the community is there to steward this process.

• We are all invited to contribute our experience of what works in bricolage, working towards a set of promising examples (e.g. Outcome Harvesting + Most Significant Change).

Get in touch (info@outcomemapping.org) if you have an example of bricolage which you think is useful to share. It may or may not involve Outcome Mapping or Outcome Harvesting.