The Logic Underlying Syntegral's Approach

Syntegral’s approach centers on three major elements: Adaptive Capacity, A Dynamic Theory Change, and an Adaptation Agenda that mediates between them.

Underlying this approach is a cyclical logic beginning with a workable understanding of the role of complexity in routine program implementation. From this understanding, individuals from frontline staff to high-level stakeholders develop the skills needed to share insights, negotiate meanings and priorities, and question assumptions that they feel may not be valid or supported by their observations and experiences.

These skills—this adaptive capacity—is then applied in multiple ways to facilitate adaptive management practices to create a better fit between the intervention and its context that result in stronger, more sustainable scale-up and greater impact. Because purposeful adaptation is part of a learning process, implementers come to appreciate that programmatic success may differ from what was originally anticipated. This more dynamic theory of change, in turn, contributes to a richer comprehension of complexity that, again, further strengthens the adaptive capacity supporting adaptive management, ad infinitum.