I write to connect the dots across learning, facilitation and governance, and to help ideas travel between worlds that do not always speak to each other. Some of this writing is practical, some is reflective, and much of it comes from working alongside teams and initiatives navigating change.
Newsletter
I use my occasional newsletter, Learning Out Loud to weave together the themes I care about, alongside personal updates and a sprinkling of what I’ve been reading, watching or listening to.
Selected Writing
- Living Notebook – reflections on Transformational Governance in practice (in progress)
- Many to Many System case studies and top tips (Huddlecraft and Dark Matter Labs, 2025)
- A Facilitator’s Handbook (Active Gloucestershire, 2021)
- Navigating Adaptive Approaches for Development Progarmmes: A Guide for the Uncertain (ODI Working Paper, 2020)
Writing on facilitation and practice
- A Facilitator’s Handbook – a practical guide for facilitators working in complex, participatory contexts
- Learning to Facilitate – reflections on developing a facilitation practice over time
- Five ways to be more intentional with virtual meetings – suggestions from early in the lockdowns
- Why drumming = facilitation – noticing how two of my loves cross over
LearnAdapt
From 2017–2020 I was part of DFID’s LearnAdapt programme, exploring how organisations learn and adapt when outcomes cannot be known in advance. This work helped shape the underpinning for how I now approach learning partnerships in practice.
Working papers and briefing notes
- Navigating Adaptive Approaches for Development Progarmmes: A Guide for the Uncertain (ODI Working Paper, 2020)
- Linking Constituent Engagement and Adaptive Management: Lessons from Practitioners (ODI Working Paper co-authored with Stephanie Buell and Megan Campbell, 2020)
- LearnAdapt: a synthesis of our work on adaptive programming with DFID/FCDO (2017–2020) (ODI Briefing Note co-authored with Ed Laws, Alina Rocha Menocal and Emma Proud, 2021).
Blog posts and workshop reports
Click the arrow for the full list
- Managing the Donor-Implementer Relationship (workshop report, 2018)
- Organisational Culture for Learning and Adaptation (workshop report, 2020)
- The Long and the Short of It: Responding to immediate needs while pursuing long-term goals (Medium blog / workshop report, 2020)
- Four ways development practitioners can learn from private sector approaches (Medium blog, 2020)
- Discussing adaptive approaches for development programmes (Medium blog / workshop report, includes video, 2020)
- Listening, Learning and Adapting (Medium blog / workshop report. Includes video, 2020).
- LearnAdapt: Lessons from three years of adaptive management (2021, contribution to blog post – see, “Linking adaptive management to other approaches and agendas“)
Archive
Earlier writing and reports from previous projects and phases of my work.
- Creating space for faith and ‘race’ in the coordinated community response to domestic abuse: SAFE Communities Impact Report (co-authored with Huda Jawad)
- Why we need to lose control to change the system: Reflections from OPEN 2019
- Saturday Morning Reading archive (weekly summary of the best things I read that week, 2014-2016)