Every context is different. This should mean that every intervention is different as well. In order to understand the impact our intervention has, we need to know the specific details of our intervention. Almost always, if we unpack the criteria that we use to make these decisions, we will understand and be able to anticipate the impact of the intervention on social dynamics.

Remember that criteria are created by humans. All of the details of an intervention are choices made by people. We can make different choices and change the impacts of our interventions.

There are two methods of Critical Detail Mapping, asking slightly different questions in slightly different ways. Both are effective.

Six Critical Details

Years of Do No Harm practice have shown that some details matter more than others. So the first approach to CDM that follows emphasizes six critical details.

Do No Harm users identified these six areas as where poor decisions were most likely to reduce the effectiveness of their work and worsen social dynamics. By contrast, paying attention to these details makes it much easier to find ways to help improve social dynamics.

Always pay close attention to the criteria used to make these decisions. It is not enough to just label who people are. Make the criteria explicit, and then discuss the implications of it.

The Six Critical Details method tends to highlight red flags and potential problem/solution areas quicker than the Seven Elements method, but also offers less immediate depth.

Seven Elements of Circumstance [1]

These classic questions are classic for a reason. They are excellent for unpacking the details of any situation.

Using these seven questions in an iterative fashion, it is possible to map out an entire intervention and all the decisions that went into planning it.

  • Why? (do we do this program?)
  • Where? (do we do this program?)
  • What? (do we do here; what do we provide?)
  • When? (and for how long do we do this?)
  • With whom? (who are our “recipients” and how did we choose them or them us?)
  • By whom? (who are our staff?)
  • How? (and how do we “deliver” our program, what are our behaviors as we work?)

These have been used by Do No Harm users from the early days as the way into a program or an intervention.

One important use has been in planning. The Seven Elements can be used to build a list of criteria that is explicit from the beginning. This has proven useful as people are able to go back to the list to determine why decisions were made. Adapting and changing an intervention is easier if the decisions and their rationale have been mapped.

The Constraints Box

There are also constraints on any intervention. These come from outside the space under the control of implementers. The constraints can be mapped as well to determine where they influence an intervention. In some cases, the constraints are quite severe in their influence, while in others, they may not have much effect on implementation at all.

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Related Topics
Critical Detail Mapping with the Seven Elements of Circumstance
Mapping with the Constraints Box
The Do No Harm Frameworks
The Relationship Framework
Criteria Matter

[1] “The Seven Elements of Circumstance”
 
Why “seven elements of circumstance” for these classic questions?
 
Hermagoras of Temnos, writing in the 1st Century BCE about rhetoric, defined seven “elements of circumstance”: Quis, quid, quando, ubi, cur, quem ad modum, quibus adminiculis (Who, what, when, where, why, in what way, by what means).
 
In our era, these questions are often referred to as the “Kipling Method”, after Rudyard Kipling’s poem:
 
I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
 
I prefer the classical designation, rather than naming an ancient method after a modern person.