Thank you all for your contributions. I was not seeing any posts on Tuesday, but yesterday many of you added your insight and responses. So thank you! Let me respond to each of you throughout today and tomorrow.
Conny, thank you for starting the discussion. You are spot on. What you are describing is precisely the tension this discussion is trying to surface. The "L" in MEL/MEAL/MERL is often the first casualty when evaluation is treated as a compliance exercise rather than a genuine learning process. Your observation that evaluation findings are frequently "put aside" after delivery is one of the most persistent and frustrating patterns in our field, and it goes to the heart of why foresight integration matters…if learning isn't happening in real time, forward-looking evaluation becomes even more difficult to anchor institutionally.
Regarding your point about outcome harvesting (OH) and outcome mapping (OM) is well taken. I’ve toyed with new evaluation concepts like Anticipatory Outcome Fishing and Foresight-Infused Outcome Mapping…attempts to weave futures thinking into evaluation approaches. As you mentioned, I have found that these approaches do in fact create more active stakeholder engagement across reflection cycles, which can build the kind of evaluative culture that makes forward-looking thinking more natural…but it is not easy for some organisations to engage at this level. I would also add that the participatory dimension you describe, i.e., getting stakeholders to reflect on what worked, what didn't, and what was unexpected, is also a foundation for scenario thinking. Once people are comfortable sitting with uncertainty and identifying assumptions, introducing foresight tools like horizon scanning or the Three Horizons framework becomes a much shorter step. Looking forward to hearing more from you as the discussion evolves.
RE: From Hindsight to Foresight: How Evaluation Can Become Future-Informed
Kenya
Steven Lynn Lichty
Managing Partner
REAL Consulting Group
Posted on 26/03/2026
Thank you all for your contributions. I was not seeing any posts on Tuesday, but yesterday many of you added your insight and responses. So thank you! Let me respond to each of you throughout today and tomorrow.
Conny, thank you for starting the discussion. You are spot on. What you are describing is precisely the tension this discussion is trying to surface. The "L" in MEL/MEAL/MERL is often the first casualty when evaluation is treated as a compliance exercise rather than a genuine learning process. Your observation that evaluation findings are frequently "put aside" after delivery is one of the most persistent and frustrating patterns in our field, and it goes to the heart of why foresight integration matters…if learning isn't happening in real time, forward-looking evaluation becomes even more difficult to anchor institutionally.
Regarding your point about outcome harvesting (OH) and outcome mapping (OM) is well taken. I’ve toyed with new evaluation concepts like Anticipatory Outcome Fishing and Foresight-Infused Outcome Mapping…attempts to weave futures thinking into evaluation approaches. As you mentioned, I have found that these approaches do in fact create more active stakeholder engagement across reflection cycles, which can build the kind of evaluative culture that makes forward-looking thinking more natural…but it is not easy for some organisations to engage at this level. I would also add that the participatory dimension you describe, i.e., getting stakeholders to reflect on what worked, what didn't, and what was unexpected, is also a foundation for scenario thinking. Once people are comfortable sitting with uncertainty and identifying assumptions, introducing foresight tools like horizon scanning or the Three Horizons framework becomes a much shorter step. Looking forward to hearing more from you as the discussion evolves.