Challenges in using the Relationship Framework

What follows are some of the challenges in using the Relationship Framework drawn from the experience of Do No Harm users all over the world. This list is not intended to discourage a particular use of this Framework! Indeed, many people do not find the challenges significant or limiting.

However, some people have had challenges with using the Framework and it has proven useful to make the experience of that explicit. This helps others having similar experiences to not get frustrated, and be left feeling as though they do not understand something.

Most of the experience of the challenges exaggerates the structure of the Framework over the use of the concepts. For use in analysis, the concepts are key, not the way they have been fitted together.

Challenges in using the Relationship Framework

Many people have said the columns feel like boxes on a form which need to be filled out (and many people do not think in boxes). Some people use it this way, happily. Others have designed different ways to capture the information and to work with the relationships. They use the Framework as a guide, not as form.

It is the case that the Framework includes many bits and pieces seemingly competing for attention. One common challenge is that because of positioning in the columns, certain elements are emphasized visually (such as where the Constraints Box has traditionally been placed at the top of the Intervention column). This has led to misunderstandings about what is crucial and what is optional. Some people feel as though everything seems equally important, and it is difficult for them to discriminate the crucial from those that simply provide greater insight.

Without training or explanation, the visual Framework provides no sense of how an analysis will flow when the Framework is used. Some have said they neither know where to start nor where to finish. One solution is to number the steps of the analysis. The danger in that, however, is that people get locked into following the steps laid down for them. The actual process through the concepts can start anywhere!

Some people have said that the Framework implies that the only set of impacts on a context come from the intervention. This puts an awful weight on people for bad things happening, as it implies all bad things are their fault. Obviously, changes in social dynamics are occurring all the time based on many factors. Tracing our impact is possible, but it is harder if we feel the weight of the world on our shoulders when we attempt to do so.

The Framework does not provide a sense of iteration. The image, and therefore the relationships, seem linear and so an analysis seems static and two-dimensional.

For most people it is too structured for the fluidity and dynamism of field experience and very few people use it outside of a classroom or office setting. This is one reason for the development of the Action Framework.

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