31 May 2010 ~ 5 Comments

Why do you hate SCALE so much?

Development Lessons Learned

I don’t.

I want to clarify. My piece in Beyond Profit called “Much Ado About Scale” was intended to be anti-scale. If we can scale a quality solution: fabulous! It was intended to encourage other ways of looking at reaching more people with our ideas, rather than just trying to encourage organizations to “scale up” when their might be more successful options.  Here are my comments/thoughts to clarify:

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“Scalability” is a great quality of a project, don’t get me wrong! Of course we should aim to get more quality solutions out to more people. What I am talking about are the cases where quality and quantity are mutually exclusive in a way that makes “scaling” dilute the efficacy of a solution.

All too often I think we jump to the conclusion that the way to get ABC successful solution to more people is to get ABC organization to “scale up”. This blog post http://ow.ly/1Fg0e highlights some of the other solutions I think we need to consider more quickly when we find a quality project, such as getting that organization to train what others might view as “competitors”. We shouldn’t look to these options as exceptions to the “always try to scale-up” rule, but rather look at how to preserve quality while maximizing our scope and then pick the appropriate solution. Why are we not aiming more often for scaling a process rather than scaling a solution, when we know from years of NGO lessons learned that the thought processes are what can be spread from place to place, not the solution housed within an organizational framework which was designed for success in a smaller scale project formed from local knowledge?

I used the examples of Skoll and Unreasonable Institute, two organizations I respect, not to say they are picking the wrong people and ideas to invest in, but to say that I think they, and perhaps our whole sector, should alter the writing on our doors. Both organizations, one a well-respected industry leader and the other a new support mechanism for our field, have funded groups which are not profitable (ones which rely on grants to sustain themselves) and solutions which were not “scalable” to the degree they claim to be looking for. Why? Probably because they too, get that quality should be the trump card which clears scale and profit when all three aren’t in one hand. Yes, you are more likely to win the game if you have all three, but if your solution is only going to get dealt one, I’d bet on quality any day.

So, when our top supporters are making many “exceptions to the rules” my question is, why do we all keep trying to push scalability as a requirement for entry into the social entrepreneurship circles? People talking to me about our educational programs ask me all the time how we are going to “scale up our impact” as if focusing on quality in one area is not a high enough goal. For the educational program side of our work, as the founder, I would be disappointed if we were aiming to be in every province in Cambodia, in every school, or in every neighboring country. Why? Because I know that the solutions with which we have found success are the ones based most strongly in local knowledge, leadership, and collaboration, and that to scale to the levels others would define as success would not be possible in my lifetime given the quality I would like us to aim for. Rather, I want us to “scale” outside of our current shell by spreading our lessons to others rather than spreading our organization around the world: do trainings for other organizations, make all of our ideas and solutions open source, and give away our ideas for free to anyone out there who wants to repeat the processes we have used. That is counter to OUR ORGANIZATION reaching “scale and higher profits”, but in my opinion that is the only way to help more people have quality solutions in this specific field.

Here in Cambodia, I was just approached by a social investment fund looking to invest in one of our profit generating ideas. They wanted to fund our project but said they needed to sell this to their board and management team as something we were aiming to do in 10 cities all around South East Asia in order to get them on-board. They approached us, eager to invest… why? Because they, like so many other social investment funds, are struggling to find these “profitable and scalable” models. The local-based team wanted to push to invest in us, knowing full-well that we had no intention of being the biggest and most profitable solution, but they were going to need to adjust our story to get the board on-board. Isn’t that silly! Why do we keep profit-driven and scale as our gatekeepers, when so many of us are investing in “exceptions to the rules”?

We turned down the money from the investment fund, largely because I’d rather have us focus on quality in one place, until we get it right than be judged through the lens of scale as our finish-line. If and when we do create a successful model, if we can “scale up” and keep our quality, then we might look to do that. If we can’t, then I’m happy to kick scalable and profit-driven off of our cards and teach others how we reached the quality we were aiming for in the first place because for me, that’s the one gatekeeper I’m looking to please.

  • http://talesfromethehood.wordpress.com J.

    It would help to know how you define “quality.” While I would agree that quality should be one of those bottom-lines below which we refuse to go, I also happen to think that scale-ability is necessarily an element of quality.

  • Anonymous

    Some initiatives can be “scaled” and the quality of the impacts can be consistent through the growth: fabulous! I just want to point out that when scaling means a loss of quality, we need to consider the trade-off! I believe that some of our most successful programs are the ones that are taking a long-term investment in people and are usually harder to “scale”. “More” is not always better. Sometimes DOING better is better than more! nnI do not think scale is a factor in quality when you look at a program at its most basic level. I should qualify that I am talking about “quality implementation and results” of a program. The metrics by which the results are measured for each program will of course need to be varied based on the program goals, but overall quality would be looking at the changes (or lack there of if that was the goal), that a program had on the people or places with/in which it was implemented towards its goals. If a program is designed to teach health lessons to children, quality would be measured based on the impact, retention, and actions of the children in each location. A program which has scaled to many towns might have a “high quality” program in Town A which is reaching pre-set metrics while the quality of the program in another area might be lower (due to poor coordination, lack of oversight, poorly-trained facilitators, etc). Therefore, I do not see scale as a factor of quality on the micro level when measuring impact as once you start averaging these two you begin to distance yourself from the reality of the programs. One GREAT program and two not so good ones does not equal three mediocre ones when it comes to measuring the impact on the lives and places suffering from a wasteful initiative.nnLarge funding agencies who have defined “scale” as a measurement of success, might look at three of these similar programs they are funding and see that each is reaching a different number of children. If they have defined a scale as part of their success metrics, they might rate one program lower “quality” than the other. And, therein lies part of the problem. If all things are equal, and the impact that the program is having (which I have called “quality” above) on the children they are meant to be teaching is the same in each of the three grantees programs, well then I agree that the one that has reached a larger scale is the most effective. If though scale trumps impact in our definition of “quality”, then we are funding less successful projects on the micro level in the name of reaching more people. In some programs that is surely ok: we’d rather have more people hear that a hurricane is coming and warn them briefly than have a long sit down conversation about emergency plans with 10 people and not reach the rest of the thousands along a coast. nnIt’s about trade-offs, as you surely know in the work that you do. Sometimes we can trade in some level of impact in an effort to reach more people. Other times, we are “scaling” for the sake of having more numbers on our website because some think it just feels a lot cooler to have built 10 health centers rather than 1, because no one on the other side of the computer knows that those 10 centers are sitting empty for lack of investment in the people to run them. This second scenario is what I am talking about.nnOne illustrative example is a a comparison I saw of two de-mining organizations. One was concerned with numbers. Their website and grant proposals featured the high number of mines they had cleared, land area made “safe”, etc. How NGOs are funded is of course a source of the exacerbation of this problem: they were well-funded as they were able to show that they cleared “more” mines than others. So, they were both internally and externally incentivized to “scale up” and clear more mines.nnAnother de-mining organization was more concerned about WHERE they cleared mines. They chose to work in areas which were closer to communities (because in Cambodia, clearing mine field can also mean deforesting) and they were less concerned about getting “more mines out” in areas with no people, than making people feel safe in the communities where they live. Their cost per mine was much higher, their numbers of mines were much lower, and their “scale” seemed much less. They though cared about the quality of their impact on communities and the people in them, taking more time to do education in the areas where they cleared mines and making sure people felt safe where they were living. I would define their program as higher impact, though more difficult to scale.nnIt’s tricky! There IS no one definition of “quality” we can all go by – but we can work to make sure we are working towards positive impacts, not towards “metrics”, as it becomes a problem when we set our own metrics and then THEY become our goals. I’d like to see less empty medical clinics in Cambodia, and one or two good ones instead, is all I’m really trying to say :-)nnThanks for chiming in!

  • Anonymous

    Some initiatives can be “scaled” and the quality of the impacts can be consistent through the growth: fabulous! I just want to point out that when scaling means a loss of quality, we need to consider the trade-off! I believe that some of our most successful programs are the ones that are taking a long-term investment in people and are usually harder to “scale”. “More” is not always better. Sometimes DOING better is better than more! nnI do not think scale is a factor in quality when you look at a program at its most basic level. I should qualify that I am talking about “quality implementation and results” of a program. The metrics by which the results are measured for each program will of course need to be varied based on the program goals, but overall quality would be looking at the changes (or lack there of if that was the goal), that a program had on the people or places with/in which it was implemented towards its goals. If a program is designed to teach health lessons to children, quality would be measured based on the impact, retention, and actions of the children in each location. A program which has scaled to many towns might have a “high quality” program in Town A which is reaching pre-set metrics while the quality of the program in another area might be lower (due to poor coordination, lack of oversight, poorly-trained facilitators, etc). Therefore, I do not see scale as a factor of quality on the micro level when measuring impact as once you start averaging these two you begin to distance yourself from the reality of the programs. One GREAT program and two not so good ones does not equal three mediocre ones when it comes to measuring the impact on the lives and places suffering from a wasteful initiative.nnLarge funding agencies who have defined “scale” as a measurement of success, might look at three of these similar programs they are funding and see that each is reaching a different number of children. If they have defined a scale as part of their success metrics, they might rate one program lower “quality” than the other. And, therein lies part of the problem. If all things are equal, and the impact that the program is having (which I have called “quality” above) on the children they are meant to be teaching is the same in each of the three grantees programs, well then I agree that the one that has reached a larger scale is the most effective. If though scale trumps impact in our definition of “quality”, then we are funding less successful projects on the micro level in the name of reaching more people. In some programs that is surely ok: we’d rather have more people hear that a hurricane is coming and warn them briefly than have a long sit down conversation about emergency plans with 10 people and not reach the rest of the thousands along a coast. nnIt’s about trade-offs, as you surely know in the work that you do. Sometimes we can trade in some level of impact in an effort to reach more people. Other times, we are “scaling” for the sake of having more numbers on our website because some think it just feels a lot cooler to have built 10 health centers rather than 1, because no one on the other side of the computer knows that those 10 centers are sitting empty for lack of investment in the people to run them. This second scenario is what I am talking about.nnOne illustrative example is a a comparison I saw of two de-mining organizations. One was concerned with numbers. Their website and grant proposals featured the high number of mines they had cleared, land area made “safe”, etc. How NGOs are funded is of course a source of the exacerbation of this problem: they were well-funded as they were able to show that they cleared “more” mines than others. So, they were both internally and externally incentivized to “scale up” and clear more mines.nnAnother de-mining organization was more concerned about WHERE they cleared mines. They chose to work in areas which were closer to communities (because in Cambodia, clearing mine field can also mean deforesting) and they were less concerned about getting “more mines out” in areas with no people, than making people feel safe in the communities where they live. Their cost per mine was much higher, their numbers of mines were much lower, and their “scale” seemed much less. They though cared about the quality of their impact on communities and the people in them, taking more time to do education in the areas where they cleared mines and making sure people felt safe where they were living. I would define their program as higher impact, though more difficult to scale.nnIt’s tricky! There IS no one definition of “quality” we can all go by – but we can work to make sure we are working towards positive impacts, not towards “metrics”, as it becomes a problem when we set our own metrics and then THEY become our goals. I’d like to see less empty medical clinics in Cambodia, and one or two good ones instead, is all I’m really trying to say :-)nnThanks for chiming in!

  • danielapapi

    Some initiatives can be “scaled” and the quality of the impacts can be consistent through the growth: fabulous! I just want to point out that when scaling means a loss of quality, we need to consider the trade-off! I believe that some of our most successful programs are the ones that are taking a long-term investment in people and are usually harder to “scale”. “More” is not always better. Sometimes DOING better is better than more!

    I do not think scale is a factor in quality when you look at a program at its most basic level. I should qualify that I am talking about “quality implementation and results” of a program. The metrics by which the results are measured for each program will of course need to be varied based on the program goals, but overall quality would be looking at the changes (or lack there of if that was the goal), that a program had on the people or places with/in which it was implemented towards its goals. If a program is designed to teach health lessons to children, quality would be measured based on the impact, retention, and actions of the children in each location. A program which has scaled to many towns might have a “high quality” program in Town A which is reaching pre-set metrics while the quality of the program in another area might be lower (due to poor coordination, lack of oversight, poorly-trained facilitators, etc). Therefore, I do not see scale as a factor of quality on the micro level when measuring impact as once you start averaging these two you begin to distance yourself from the reality of the programs. One GREAT program and two not so good ones does not equal three mediocre ones when it comes to measuring the impact on the lives and places suffering from a wasteful initiative.

    Large funding agencies who have defined “scale” as a measurement of success, might look at three of these similar programs they are funding and see that each is reaching a different number of children. If they have defined a scale as part of their success metrics, they might rate one program lower “quality” than the other. And, therein lies part of the problem. If all things are equal, and the impact that the program is having (which I have called “quality” above) on the children they are meant to be teaching is the same in each of the three grantees programs, well then I agree that the one that has reached a larger scale is the most effective. If though scale trumps impact in our definition of “quality”, then we are funding less successful projects on the micro level in the name of reaching more people. In some programs that is surely ok: we'd rather have more people hear that a hurricane is coming and warn them briefly than have a long sit down conversation about emergency plans with 10 people and not reach the rest of the thousands along a coast.

    It's about trade-offs, as you surely know in the work that you do. Sometimes we can trade in some level of impact in an effort to reach more people. Other times, we are “scaling” for the sake of having more numbers on our website because some think it just feels a lot cooler to have built 10 health centers rather than 1, because no one on the other side of the computer knows that those 10 centers are sitting empty for lack of investment in the people to run them. This second scenario is what I am talking about.

    One illustrative example is a a comparison I saw of two de-mining organizations. One was concerned with numbers. Their website and grant proposals featured the high number of mines they had cleared, land area made “safe”, etc. How NGOs are funded is of course a source of the exacerbation of this problem: they were well-funded as they were able to show that they cleared “more” mines than others. So, they were both internally and externally incentivized to “scale up” and clear more mines.

    Another de-mining organization was more concerned about WHERE they cleared mines. They chose to work in areas which were closer to communities (because in Cambodia, clearing mine field can also mean deforesting) and they were less concerned about getting “more mines out” in areas with no people, than making people feel safe in the communities where they live. Their cost per mine was much higher, their numbers of mines were much lower, and their “scale” seemed much less. They though cared about the quality of their impact on communities and the people in them, taking more time to do education in the areas where they cleared mines and making sure people felt safe where they were living. I would define their program as higher impact, though more difficult to scale.

    It's tricky! There IS no one definition of “quality” we can all go by – but we can work to make sure we are working towards positive impacts, not towards “metrics”, as it becomes a problem when we set our own metrics and then THEY become our goals. I'd like to see less empty medical clinics in Cambodia, and one or two good ones instead, is all I'm really trying to say :-)

    Thanks for chiming in!

  • danielapapi

    Some initiatives can be “scaled” and the quality of the impacts can be consistent through the growth: fabulous! I just want to point out that when scaling means a loss of quality, we need to consider the trade-off! I believe that some of our most successful programs are the ones that are taking a long-term investment in people and are usually harder to “scale”. “More” is not always better. Sometimes DOING better is better than more!

    I do not think scale is a factor in quality when you look at a program at its most basic level. I should qualify that I am talking about “quality implementation and results” of a program. The metrics by which the results are measured for each program will of course need to be varied based on the program goals, but overall quality would be looking at the changes (or lack there of if that was the goal), that a program had on the people or places with/in which it was implemented towards its goals. If a program is designed to teach health lessons to children, quality would be measured based on the impact, retention, and actions of the children in each location. A program which has scaled to many towns might have a “high quality” program in Town A which is reaching pre-set metrics while the quality of the program in another area might be lower (due to poor coordination, lack of oversight, poorly-trained facilitators, etc). Therefore, I do not see scale as a factor of quality on the micro level when measuring impact as once you start averaging these two you begin to distance yourself from the reality of the programs. One GREAT program and two not so good ones does not equal three mediocre ones when it comes to measuring the impact on the lives and places suffering from a wasteful initiative.

    Large funding agencies who have defined “scale” as a measurement of success, might look at three of these similar programs they are funding and see that each is reaching a different number of children. If they have defined a scale as part of their success metrics, they might rate one program lower “quality” than the other. And, therein lies part of the problem. If all things are equal, and the impact that the program is having (which I have called “quality” above) on the children they are meant to be teaching is the same in each of the three grantees programs, well then I agree that the one that has reached a larger scale is the most effective. If though scale trumps impact in our definition of “quality”, then we are funding less successful projects on the micro level in the name of reaching more people. In some programs that is surely ok: we'd rather have more people hear that a hurricane is coming and warn them briefly than have a long sit down conversation about emergency plans with 10 people and not reach the rest of the thousands along a coast.

    It's about trade-offs, as you surely know in the work that you do. Sometimes we can trade in some level of impact in an effort to reach more people. Other times, we are “scaling” for the sake of having more numbers on our website because some think it just feels a lot cooler to have built 10 health centers rather than 1, because no one on the other side of the computer knows that those 10 centers are sitting empty for lack of investment in the people to run them. This second scenario is what I am talking about.

    One illustrative example is a a comparison I saw of two de-mining organizations. One was concerned with numbers. Their website and grant proposals featured the high number of mines they had cleared, land area made “safe”, etc. How NGOs are funded is of course a source of the exacerbation of this problem: they were well-funded as they were able to show that they cleared “more” mines than others. So, they were both internally and externally incentivized to “scale up” and clear more mines.

    Another de-mining organization was more concerned about WHERE they cleared mines. They chose to work in areas which were closer to communities (because in Cambodia, clearing mine field can also mean deforesting) and they were less concerned about getting “more mines out” in areas with no people, than making people feel safe in the communities where they live. Their cost per mine was much higher, their numbers of mines were much lower, and their “scale” seemed much less. They though cared about the quality of their impact on communities and the people in them, taking more time to do education in the areas where they cleared mines and making sure people felt safe where they were living. I would define their program as higher impact, though more difficult to scale.

    It's tricky! There IS no one definition of “quality” we can all go by – but we can work to make sure we are working towards positive impacts, not towards “metrics”, as it becomes a problem when we set our own metrics and then THEY become our goals. I'd like to see less empty medical clinics in Cambodia, and one or two good ones instead, is all I'm really trying to say :-)

    Thanks for chiming in!