Tracking & Tracing our Impact in real time
What’s the Impact Matrix?
Our times call for agility and transparency as we move forward on our mission. The Impact Matrix is a real-time reliability and accountability tool for oikos International. It helps us to plan and track the milestones of our work, while giving insight into the broader impact we have - both, regarding our international activities and the work of our community. And the great thing: it is yours to take ownership of! Everyone will be involved in bringing it to life. :)
This is a learning process. We are here to prototype and improve the system as we walk. We encourage you to reach out for advice to your oI team colleagues & the Impact Matrix facilitators/coordinators if there are any uncertainties, open questions etc.
How is the matrix structured?
On the horizontal axis, the matrix covers the fields of leading, learning, living and organizing. The vertical axis shows a distinction between the international level, collaborations with and from the community and flagship activities from our chapters. Think about: Who is hosting the initiative?
This structure allows us to track & trace the impact of...
oikos is running several international initiatives with the aim of tending the oikos community and supporting them in their missions. The Impact Matrix gives an overview of all projects and initiatives and their strategic focus. It serves as a continuous impact dashboard for our community work. Both ongoing & 1-time projects use the tools to plan and report back on milestones and achievements, linking back to the stories we wish to share as the project progresses.
Tracking & tracing the impact of our community is a challenging task, considering the organically rising number of chapters and the decentralized, self-organizing nature of the network. We encourage our chapters to get creative in their reporting, share best practices and reflect on their journey in the chapter impact dashboards, a tool that has been developed with similar intentions as the matrix. A selection of chapters' projects will be featured in the Impact Matrix. Next to presenting a bigger part of our impact map as an organization, this will enable other Chapters to directly reach out for potential collaborations and get ideas for chapter projects. Every semester, 3 community initiatives per category will be selected & showcased in the matrix, so that it entails a sense of the work we are doing on the ground, as well.
Our work at oikos goes beyond what we do in our initiatives. Our work wouldn’t be possible without the support of several operational functions that help sustain and strengthen our complex organization over time. In over 30 years, the world and the organization itself changed a lot and we keep adapting to our needs and the continuously shifting contexts. Growing more agile over time with a focus on learning in a trusting, meaningful environment increases our resilience as an organization - a trend that ripples through and inspires our chapters, as well. Even if many of these things, like organizational culture, appear intangible at first sight, we give our best to open windows and showcase our main initiatives that help us to ride on top of the wave of our times. The impact matrix, therefore, also is a tool to present what we do in fields like organizational development, fundraising, communications, IT etc.
The distinction between learning, leading, living and organizing is related to the question of 'How do we want to lead, learn & live together?' and allows us to indicate a focus area of the particular initiatives: Do initiatives mainly address topics around learning & education, leadership, activities in the realm of how we tend our community and/or topics of organizing & internal development? Multiple selection at once is possible.
What’s in the Impact Matrix, what isn’t?
It will need some advice & trial at the beginning to see which entries make sense for us or not. We encourage you to reach out to other team members to guide you in the process.
Who feeds the matrix?
YOU FILL THE MATRIX! :) In general: Every sub-team that is responsible for an initiative, and in particular the person from a sub-team who has been assigned the role of maintaining the impact matrix (see role description here), is responsible to feed the impact matrix.
Considering that the matrix is a rather new tool with a new approach, we installed a shared facilitation to support the maintenance and usefulness, providing coaching on the journey, and generating an overview over all current development.
The Impact team focuses on supporting the international initiatives listed in the learning, leading & living columns. This team also maintains an overview of the whole matrix. The VP with the role within Organizational Development supports the team regarding initiatives that feed into the organizing column (column 4). The Chapter/Community team makes sure that the chapter layer of the Impact Matrix is always up to date, filled with the most powerful stories and coordinates the chapter impact competition.
What is the process?
The matrix is a tool to continuously track & trace our work, and therefore needs continuous tending from everyone. Facilitators supervise & remind at the beginning, but the matrix is meant to be a useful tool that is mainly coordinated by the teams, and in self-organization. There will be touchpoints every 3 & 6 months:
Every initiative sub-team/role owner fills in the matrix autonomously via the Update form, using it as a tool for accountability, planning & reflection. This is what we call real-time strategy. (Of course, there will be reminders to refresh the matrix and if you remember yourself you'll get a candy)
Upon handing in the update, the facilitators invite the sub-team for a 45-minute, reflective check-in to support the process and point out gaps in the matrix and how to address them.
After checking-in with all sub-teams, the facilitators meet for a quarterly clean up & storage maintenance.
There will be bi-annual gatherings of the whole oikos International team to look at the matrix together, with the aim of concluding focus points for the next semesters. These sessions will be part of the team days.
How to fill and update the matrix? - A simple process:
Setting a baseline for every entry: To start an entry in the matrix, every team will receive several simple, guiding questions, provided in the baseline form. This is information that shouldn't change frequently over time. (If need be, it can be changed through the Airtable base in the backend. Ask your facilitators :))
Updating entries: Right at the beginning, and from there on every 3 months, the Update form should be filled for every entry. This is the data on the status quo of the initiative, achieved goals, learnings & next milestones etc. While data from previous updates will be stored in the backend, submitting the form equals a real-time update on the website. There soon will be a historical function that allows users to hoover through a timeline of updates, exploring progress on the website.
Closing entries: Once an initiative is finished, a last update form is being filled. Make sure to tick the last box in the form, indicating that this will be the last update. Closed initiatives change their status from active to passive and can be re-accessed through the database function on Airtable & the website, showcasing the development of our impact over time.
Where to find help?
Contact Darija, Sophie, Mehraj or Yari via Discord :)
| What is... | What isn’t... |
|---|---|
-Our core international initiatives & projects, both ongoing & one-time
-Ongoing operational work streams & maintenance (eg. fundraising, communication,..)
-Our main initiatives to strengthen the organization, both ongoing & one time (need to cluster; feel of a project with start & end; eg. new CI, oikosmos, new fundraising process)
-Election processes & other foreseeable changes as stated and required through the constitution (eg. board election, audit, etc.)
-Selected, diverse initiatives of our chapters