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Module

political and bureaucratic environment, and issue attention cycles, will help you focus your impact 2
objectives.

Too often, people move immediately to the information gathering stages of the assessment,
without due consideration of Step 2. You need to think carefully about who will be in a
position to take the findings of your assessment and use them effectively. Information by itself
does not leverage change, but relationships do. It is vital to have people communicating ideas,
analysis and data to other people. The next step is to identify the individuals and groups you Abu Dhabi, UAE
most want to reach. You need to consider how these people acquire information, who they
trust and what do they trust in terms of information resources. How can you get to those
people? If you cannot reach them directly, then who are the people they do listen to, and can
you reach them instead?

Step 2. Identify those who are in positions to make the decision or effect the changes; those
who can influence the decision makers directly (intermediaries — the people who lean in
to whisper advice into the ears of the decision makers); those in civil society who can bring
pressure to bear on decision makers; those who can support, reinforce and strengthen your
recommendations, in particular the academic community and other research institutes; and
those in the media through whom we reach the public, who can also influence decision
makers. Central to determining who to reach is the concept of relationship management,
which means maintaining the connections and influence over time.

Step 3. Once you have identified who will help with achieving the decision you seek, you

need to analyze both what they need to know, and what you need to know, that will help
them take or influence the decision. This is the knowledge management process of the
assessment. The remainder of this session will introduce some of the tools you need to
gather, analyze and process your information.

Step 4. Next, determine how to move that knowledge into the hands of those you want
to influence. There are many tools available to do this: the products to be released, the
conferences and workshops to be held, and the amplifiers, including electronic mailing
lists and websites, which get replicated throughout much wider audiences than may have
been targeted. At the heart of the tactics and strategies that are developed is the creative
management of opportunities: both taking advantage of key windows to move the assessment
findings into the hands of others, and creating opportunity directly. An important part of
this process is the development of “key messages” that are short, simple, plain language

statements that capture the essence of the work.

IEA Training Manual Workshop for the National Reporting Toolkit (NRT) 41