Turning Monitoring and Evaluation Inside Out

Reflections from a series on MEL (Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning) from School CEO, Anna Birney.

Through the School of System Change MEL series last year, we sought to explore what monitoring and evaluation meant in the context of systems change, seeking to bring together MEL specialists and changemakers to understand this practice. One thing that has stayed with me from the series is the redefining of different terms and ideas that are embedded in the more traditional forms of M&E and flipping them on their head. And so I wanted to come back to the series and share some of the insights and threads that we wove together as well as video snippets from the eight contributors.

This article follows on from my article on Unearthing the inquiries and dilemmas of monitoring, evaluation and learning – where I lay out different framing assumptions of the more traditional approach to the more systemic and transformative approach that we explored in this series. It also draws on our eight experienced contributors from across this field who both helped us unpick these dilemmas further and gave inspiration to our future practices – as we bring a systemic approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning.

As a little taster we have curated a short video from each contributor from the sessions. If you would like to access the full content, offer a bespoke series to your organisation or network or would like to explore learning and practice support – get in touch.

How might we place a complexity-aware and systemic approach at the heart of our MEL practice?

Exploring why MEL matters and how central it is to take a systemic, relational and living systems approach, and shift from a dominant mechanistic paradigm to understanding change.

How might we take a systemic perspective to understanding our contribution to systems change?

Exploring how we can harness different ways of understanding our contribution to change, through systemic impact frameworks, developing indicators, learning questions, and more emergent approaches to harvesting stories, and the dilemmas that emerge through this.

How might we take a participatory approach to the design and delivery of our MEL approach?

Exploring how we navigate the realities of MEL in the context of power, from questions of accountability and learning, to whom and for what, and different modes of engagement, including where this work takes place.

How might we cultivate processes for MEL through an integrated learning approach?

Exploring how we can bring MEL into our everyday work by uncovering the multiple methods we can use in implementing our approach in our organisations and change work so we can better strategise, act, reflect and adapt together.

What was emerging from the contributors and the conversations with the practitioners who joined us on the series? What does it mean to turn MEL inside out and see it from a deeper or different paradigm; from the linear, quantifiable, knowable and perhaps top-down to a more living, relational and complexity informed approach – where learning is the process of change?

Here are eight different themes or patterns that start to tell a different story of how we might understand and practise MEL – from the broader philosophy to the micro practices that seemed to resonate with the participants and myself.

As our contributor Gladys Rowe said, we are all really just “seeking to experience the complexity of the human experience” and the way that we do that as humans, how we connect with others, how we learn naturally is through stories. This was a strong theme that was woven throughout the series… if we turn being evaluators inside out we are really storytellers – choosing what to highlight and what and whose story to tell.

As we tell these stories, what we are trying to unearth is what really matters to us as humans; what is underneath the surface of what is happening and what we are seeing as a monitor and track the work and patterns as they unfold. This requires us to look at the principles, philosophies and values that are under what stories we are telling, and knowing what our own biases are, where we are coming from and what we are bringing to this process. As storytellers we also have power, and with that power is a responsibility, so knowing and owning that positionality is critical to quality evaluation. It turns the idea of MEL being an objective truth seeking process upside down and embeds us in the process with integrity.

This way of being and learning – that is very human and relational – challenges the current expectations that are put on MEL – and it might even be threatening to the dominant system. As Lee Risby said, we are living in a time where there is a crisis in how we see management, as it’s not really serving the complexity of the work. The way that we do strategising and governance, from obsessions with linear theories of change, to boards getting in their (own) way and setting the agenda of what they want to know, seeking attribution and quantification about what really counts, rather than setting the enabling conditions and therefore culture that supports learning that empowers and gives agency to those doing the work so that they can make a (bigger dare I say more impactful) contribution to the world.

If we are changing the expectations of MEL, then we also need to challenge our mindsets, which means shifting the language and framings that we use in this work. There were a number of different asks to use different terms for the acronyms of MEL, that support us shift our focus; moving from:

During the series, change practitioners were expressing that the evaluation process can often feel like a burden. As it is the funder or board process that determines the parameters and asks, rather than it benefiting those closest and enacting the change. Meaning we need to ask questions about who is involved, what is a quality process, and how is it resourced and valued. Asking ourselves – who is engaging in whose process?

If we bring together these different framings and practices it creates a new definition of quality, from a reductionist objective form of rigour to one where quality is in the mosaic of the multiple methods, the bricolage of our approaches and perspectives that are brought in. Going upstream to the questions and values you start with and the quality of engagement as an indicator, thus being in the relational, messy and human process of change. Quality MEL defined as the celebration of diverse multiplicity, depth through breadth.

And yet as practitioners we felt it was important to not get lost in the complexity, by trying to design the perfect – perhaps over complicated MEL approach; whilst a lot of our contributors were also inviting in the small and simple approaches. What is the right sizing approach? What is useful? How might it weave into our day-to-day? What is good enough? What can we do to just get learning flowing?

How do we make our tools as flexible as the work? One of these simple orientations that hit home for people and was the simplicity of putting in a process of tracking, a cadence and rhythm to the practice. That could be a social process like asking at the end of a meeting as a team, 'What have I/we learned?' Sally Walkerman shared some of the ways she brought this into Small Foundation through a capture process or spreadsheet they use in their organisation. Building the muscle of monitoring and learning.

This is just my weaving of the learning from the series and comes from just one perspective… and doesn’t go nearly into the depth that both the contributors offered and practitioners. But I hope it offers some questions and reflections for your learning and practice on the topic!

Thanks again to the contributors, my co-hosts and the participants. If you would like to dive deeper into this work, are interested in a specific course on this topic, or have resources to share then we would love to hear from you.

Originally published on Medium by Anna Birney and the School of System Change.

Join Emily Gates and Pablo Vidueira on Wed 15 July 2026 to learn how to evaluate systemic change in ways that match its complexity and ambition, and craft an evaluation fit for your practice context. This online 2-hour workshop is part of the Seedling Series: short courses supporting changemakers to embrace complexity through discovering the diversity of systemic approaches and practitioners.