1. Results Chains

2. What is a Results Chain?
A simple method (device) used to help clarify our assumptions about how conservation strategies contribute to reducing threats and achieving the conservation of specific targets
FIRST – We want to introduce the concept of results chains. If you have already seen examples of results chains, we hope this will serve as a refresher. If not, we hope this introduction will help to demonstrate the value of following this approach to developing strategy effectiveness measures.
What is a Results Chain?
It is a simple tool that clarifies the assumptions about how conservation strategies contribute to reducing threats and achieving the conservation of targets.

3. Results Chains – The Basics
Is a diagram of a series of “if…then” statements (“causal”)
Defines how we think a project strategy or activity is going to contribute to reducing a threat and conserving a target
Focuses on the achievement of results – not the execution of activities
Is composed of assumptions that can be tested

4. Impact of Actions Achieves/MaintainsViability
Simple example
Strategy
Target
Result
Result
Result
The FIRST benefit is simply describing the assumptions behind the strategy – how the strategy will impact biodiversity – so that others can easily understand the intent. As we know, many of our policy strategies have suffered from the fact that such explicit statement of the strategy’s impact on biodiversity has been lacking.
In-Direct
Threat
Abated or
Opportunity seized
Direct
Threat
Objective
Achieved
In-Direct
Threat
Abated or opportunity
seized
Impact of Actions Achieves/MaintainsViability

5. NW Yunnan, China – Fuel wood threat
Threat Abatement Objective: To reduce by 75% the consumption of fuel wood collected from biologically sensitive forests in the project area in 10 years
Here is an example from NW Yunnan in China, where they developed an ambitious objective of reducing by 75% the consumption of fuel wood collected from biologically sensitive forests in the project area in 10 years
The simplified results chain to support this strategy is indicated in the diagram…When facilitating this process it is often helpful to get the team members to talk through their logic chain aloud….
If we develop effective outreach efforts on the benefits of efficient heating and cooking devises and provide support and incentives for installation….
Then families will switch to efficient heating and cooking devices.
If families switch to efficient heating and cooking devices then the reliance on fuel wood will be reduced.
If reliance on fuel wood is reduced than logging will be reduced (threat abatement).
If this happens than the mixed forest will improve in health (target viability)
Strategic action
Threat abate-ment result
result
result

6. Why? Why Results Chains? Document assumptions State our hypotheses
Formulate measures
Lets us “peek inside” our thinking about how a project strategy or activity is going to actually work to contribute to reducing a threat and conserving a target
Provides a series of hypotheses that can be tested
Creates a foundation for establishing strategy effectiveness measures to determine if the strategy is working or not.
There are several important aspects of results chains that have been developed over the years to
- help construct them in a way that establish sound strategy effectiveness measures
– also help to improve probability that the strategy will be successful.
FIRST – results chains diagrams are best constructed as a series of “if-then” statements. These infer causality…
SECOND – They define how we think a strategy or activity will reduce a threat and conserve a target.
THIRD – They focus on achieving results…not just a listing of activities.
And FOURTH – They are composed of hypotheses that can be tested…

7. Situation Analysis? Results Chains?
Situation Analyses:
Shows the situation today  and helps us to illuminate points of intervention and identify strategies
Results Chains:
Starts with selected strategies  and helps to illuminate the path to the desired results
There has been some confusion about the difference between our conceptual models – or situation diagrams – and Results Chains.
In short, situations diagrams show the situation today, and why the strategy is important and relevant.
Results Chains add in measurable objectives and indicators…and these show the desired future conditions that result from the strategy.
I will now turn it over to Dan to describe some examples of projects he has worked with on results chains….

8. Results Chains and CAP?
This methodology does not replace the other steps in CAP – but complements and enriches
In terms of our work with the Science Council…and our own desires to be rigorous in the science we work on…results chains are not a replacement for more rigorous scientific monitoring and evaluation.
Instead, they form the necessary basis from which sound hypotheses are formed to test, and for those hypotheses that we do not test…they become our assumptions.
When we do not test any hypotheses…we are simply left to trusting that many assumptions are true – from the amount of inputs needed for a strategy to succeed, to our estimates of impact.
This is how we have done business in the past…but is not the preferred route in the future.

9. How to construct a results chain?
Step 1. Select a target and threat you want to work on
Step 2. Select the objective that your team believes will successfully address that threat
Step 3. Select a strategy [strategic action(s) or “line of action”] that is designed to achieve that objective

10. How to construct a results chain?
Step 4. Identify the main factors (indirect threats or opportunities) that contribute to that direct threat that you assume must be changed to reduce the threat
Factors might include:
market forces
social issues
people’s level of knowledge of appropriate practices
Politics
Policies
Enforcement issues
In the case of invasive species – vectors of dispersal

11. How to construct a results chain?
Step 5. Working from the left to the right……
Ask what the immediate results or outcomes of the strategic
actions should be?
What intermediate outcomes you expect these
actions to produce?
What additional outcomes are necessary to
reduce your threat?
How to construct a results chain?
Another way is to work from right to left, asking what needs to happen to reduce the threat, what outcomes are needed to make that happen, etc.
Yet another way is to brainstorm intermediate results and then organize them along the chain, assuring that there are clear “if…then” linkages between each pair of results.

13. Good Results Chains are…
Results oriented: Boxes contain desired results (e.g., reduction of hunting), and not activities (e.g., conduct a study).
Connected in a “causal” manner: There are clear connections of “if…then” statements between each pair of boxes.
Demonstrate changes: Each box describes how you hope the relevant factor will change (e.g.,increase or decrease).
Analysis of hundreds of results chains has identified a few characteristics of good results chains that include:
ONE - They are Results oriented: Boxes contain desired results (e.g., reduction of hunting), and not activities (e.g., conduct a study).
TWO – They are Connected in a “causal” manner: There are clear connections of “if…then” statements between each pair of successive boxes.
THREE – They Demonstrate changes: Each box describes how you hope the relevant factor will change (e.g., improve, increase, or decrease).

14. Good Results Chains are…
Relatively complete: There are sufficient boxes to construct logical connections but not so many that the chain becomes overly complex.
Simple: There is only one result per box.
FOURTH – They are relatively complete – Teams do tend to make these overly complex – and it requires some skill to prevent large spaghetti chains.
FINALLY – like all good models – they are best when simple. They focus on the bare essentials – only one result per box - and should be limited to what you can reasonably influence. For example…not the occurrence of sun spots…

15. What is NOT a Results Chain?
It is not an implementation flow diagram…
Results chains focus on
the achievement of results not the execution of activities
In comparison, what is NOT a results chain? It is not an implementation flow diagram.
An implementation flow diagram might look like this:
I'm going to implement a media campaign. First, I'm going to implement a media campaign. So, first I’m going to identify my target audience, then I'm going to produce educational materials, then I'm going to distribute educational materials. This is a series of activities. If you try to read this chain in an if=then manner, you will see there are not causal linkages between the boxes. For example, if I identify my target audience, then I will produce educational materials? No, this is not a direct causal result of identifying my target audience.
Reading your chain as a series of if-then relationships is a good way to make sure that components of your results chain are not an implementation chain. This is a very common mistake.

16. Using results chains to elucidate Strategy Effectiveness Measures

17. NW Yunnan, China – Fuel wood threat
Resources spent on Alternative
Energy Strategy
FY $50,000
FY2002 $150,000
FY2003 $350,000
Total $550,000
The total investment in resources – or inputs - is just over ½ million dollars.

18. NW Yunnan, China – Fuel wood threat
Record of activities
completed
proposals written
grants received
# presentations made
number of households contacted
There has been a lot of activity associated with this strategy, including writing and receiving grants, presentations to local communities, household surveys.
Training on Fireplace, Biogas, and Greenhouse Use in Village

19. NW Yunnan, China – Fuel wood threat
Alternative energy installations
completed by x date
1,491 Household Scale Biogas Units
20 Biogas-Greenhouse Units
97 Improved Fireplace/Cookstoves
129 Solar Water Heating Units
9 Energy demonstration project at schools
Outputs include counts of the alternative energy installations completed.
# of biogas units
# of biogas-greenhouse combinations
# of improved cookstoves
# of solar units
# of energy demonstrations at schools

20. NW Yunnan, China – Fuel wood threat
Threat abatement measured by measuring changes in volume of wood consumed in a sample of households
Household surveys to collect details on # people, fuel wood uses
Outputs are measured by tracking the rate of wood consumption by measuring changes in the size of wood piles outside of villagers homes along with household surveys on how they are using wood and much time they are spending gathering it.

21. NW Yunnan, China – Fuel wood threat
Changes in forest cover calculated from changes in satellite-derived forest-cover maps
The Impacts to the conservation targets are assessed through a combination of periodic forest cover maps.

22. NW Yunnan, China – Fuel wood threat
Changes in forest cover recorded from permanent photopoints along ridge top trails
And by a series of ground-based permanent photopoints along ridge tops.

23. NW Yunnan, China – Fuel wood threat
Here is the results chain with the indicators that are tracked to show what progress is or is not being made.
These terms like outputs and impacts are all used in different ways by different organizations – which is a cause of confusion when we share results. C.I. for example, refers to their ultimate biodiversity condition as their outcomes.
It doesn’t really matter what the steps are called. What is important is recognizing the need to track more than just the species or habitats we’re concerned about when we’re trying to figure out whether our actions are achieving their intented results.
Measures of the activities implemented and measures of threat abatement are critical to understanding whether strategies are working.

24. Break-out exercise instructions

25. What follows are additional slides one might use to illustrate this step

26. Mackinaw River

27. Example -
The Mackinaw River
Central Illinois
Strategy - Increase the implementation of agricultural best management practices (BMP) to reduce fertilizer impacts to water quality, and improve the status of in-stream biota – particularly the freshwater mussels.
Highly agricultural landscape
740,000 acre watershed, TNC involvement started in 1990
One of Illinois’ highest quality streams
100 fish species, 32 mussel species known from the watershed

28. Mackinaw River

29. Mackinaw River

30. Condor Bioreserve Situation Analysis
Who are the key stakeholders with vested interest in the project, what factors are driving critical threats, and what opportunities exist?
We use probing questions to identify key stakeholders and motivations driving the direct threats.
We often use box and arrow diagrams to map the causal relationships that connect the focal targets to the direct threats to the underlying causes. Here’s an example from the Condor Bioreserve in Ecuador where one of the targets, the Andean Bear, is killed because of bear-cattle conflicts in the area. Economic losses are driving the bear killing and stem from the co-occurrence of productive grasslands used for cattle grazing and the habitat area of the Andean Bear. There is also a weak institutional response to the killings as another contributing cause.
The situation analysis documents our assumptions regarding the drivers behind critical threats. This transparency is particularly helpful in projects involving multiple stakeholders because it provides a basis for peer-review to catch and correct faulty thinking.
These diagrams clearly layout assumptions that drive our selection of actions and set the basis for what evidence we need to collect to inform our progress

31. Condor Bioreserve
What factors in our situation analysis warrant action?
Project teams can use their situation analysis diagrams to brainstorm the relative advantages of intervening in different locations. For example, they might decide to initiate….
a participatory process leading to the zoning of areas of recognized conservation value and separate zones for livestock grazing
Or they may explore ways to compensate ranchers for cattle killed by bears.

32. Condor Bioreserve
Results Chain