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Outcomes and impact..

 


I was in a discussion a week or so ago when I asked the presenter about the strategy they were proposing and asked them to differentiate between the project outcomes and the project impact. An outcome is the realisation of an intended output from a project - production of a prototype, a report, a presentation. These can all be defined to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound). An outcome may have a localised effect but may not deliver impact. 

Impact is the change you want to see, the adoption of the technology, the recommendations being implemented as a lived experience. An outcome is not the end of the road. An outcome is a staging post on the journey towards impact. This does not mean that an outcome is short term and an impact is long term - the difference is more complex. 

Output = the report; Outcome = 50,000 downloads of the report; Impact = 25% of those businesses who downloaded the report adopted the recommendations...

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