Logic mapping, hints and tips’ is a simple to use guide to logic mapping, produced by the Tavistock Institute which has just been published on the Department of Transport website.

Although specifically designed for people in the transport sector, the guide is sufficiently general to be of interest to policy makers, evaluators, local authorities and partnership organisations in all sectors.

The guide draws on the experience gained across a number of recent Tavistock Institute projects, including the recent development of guidance on how to achieve better ‘attribution’, in transport evaluations development of self evaluation tool kits and delivery of self evaluation training to local authorities and voluntary sector organizations involved delivering prevention of violent extremism and health literacy projects.

Logic mapping provides a way of laying out, in a clear, visual form, key steps and links in a project or programme, and identifying how different activities are believed to be linked to different sets of outcomes and impacts. Logic mapping is widely for planning projects and programmes, and is increasingly being used in their evaluation.

The three chapters of the guidelines take the reader through the following step-by-step processes, with tips, ideas, practical suggestions and common hurdles highlighted throughout.

Chapter 1: Logic mapping and its uses
What are logic maps, what are their components and what is their purpose?

Chapter 2: Step-by-step guide to logic mapping
How do you go about populating each element of a logic map? Best practice, useful hints and tips.

Chapter 3: Using logic maps as part of an evaluation strategy
How can logic maps be used throughout the evaluation process? E.g. defining the evaluation questions, deciding on the evaluation criteria and data sources or analysing the data.

Dione Hills has been undertaking evaluation at the Institute for the last 24 years, working primarily in the areas of community development, public health, disability and social care- more recently branching into the area of transport. Increasingly, her work involves developing tools and resources to enable people to undertake evaluation activities within their own organizations, with appropriate external support and assistance, and in working with a theory of change evaluation strategies in complex community programmes. This logic mapping guide combines together these two different sets of experience.

A copy of ‘Logic mapping, hints and tips’ can be downloaded from the Department of Transport website.

For further details and more information on logic mapping please contact Dione Hills d.hills@tavinstitute.org