RBM Training
Greg Armstrong
If you are interested in learning more on your own about results-based management, below are links to 50 Results Based Management handbooks, guides and websites with other tools and opinions on results-based management, related topics on planning and evaluation, and information on the donor agencies' approaches to results-based management.
Readers can find the most recent reviews of Results-Based Management guides and tools at the Results-Based Management Websites Review, a blog written by Greg Armstrong.
To learn more about RBM training contact gregarmstrong@rbmtraining.com .
Updated June 2021
Results-Based Management Handbooks, Guides & Tools
©Greg Armstrong 2021 All rights reserved.
Multilateral Agency Results-Based Management Guides
- The Asian Development Bank's Introduction to Results Management. More recent documents include the ADB Transitional Results Framework 2017-2020, the 2019 ADB Guidelines on Preparing a Design and Monitoring Framework, and given the growing importance of addressing climate change for ADB, examples of how it is applying the results framework in the ADB Operational Plan for Integrated Disaster Relief Management. A more hands-on tool is the 2012 ADB guide Strengthening Participation for Development Results from the Climate Investment Funds website.
- A 2017 OECD review of Results-Based Management in the World Bank Group summarizes how the Bank uses it for management purposes.
- The International Centre for Criminal Law Reform & Criminal Justice Policy's 2015 Justice Indicators and Criminal Justice Reform: A Reference Tool by Yvon Dandurand, Kittipong Kittayarak and Alison MacPhail, reviews important issues in development of justice and rule of law indicators.
- The 2011 United Nations Rule of Law Indicators, Implementation Guide and Project Tools currently available from the Vera Institute of Justice provides 135 indicators on a wide range of justice reform issues and provides guidance on management of the data collection and data analysis processes.
- UNIFEM's RBM guide -- one of the easiest of the donor agency materials to understand. PDF file. [See review]
- The 2009 UNDP Handbook on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating for Development Results (originally available in English, French, Spanish and Russian). [See discussion]. This document is still available, but an updated January 2019 UNDP Evaluation Guidelines is now available. (This particular UN website is http only, which may cause connection problems in Firefox secure mode.)
- The ILO RBM Guide [See discussion ] and a useful series of 2013 tools on RBM: ILO policy guidelines for results-based evaluation: Principles, rationale, planning and managing for evaluations, 2nd edition.
- The United Nations Evaluation Group's paper on The Role of Evaluation in Results Based Management.
- The African Development Bank in 2017 published two complex, but useful reports on how it handles Results-Based Management including annexes on the theory of change and indicators - The Bank Group Results Measurement Framework 2016-2025 and the November 2017 Operational Guidelines On The Implementation Of The Bank Group’s Results-Based Financing Policy
- Jody Kusek and and Ray Risk's World Bank report - "Ten Steps to a Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation System" [available in English, French, Spanish and Vietnamese].
- Glen Farrell's Handbook on Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation at the Commonwealth of Learning.
- UNICEF's well written 2017 Results Based Management Handbook: Working Together for Children (PDF) is for some reason not easy to find on the UNICEF website, but is available in English, French and Spanish from the Mosaic.net International website. The older, 2003 "Understanding Results-Based Programme Planning and Management" (PDF) was removed from the UNICEF Website but is available from the Sri Lanka Centre for Poverty Analysis's Poverty Portal which has a large number of other resources available.
- The International Fund for Agricultural Development's eminently practical and detailed 2002 IFAD Guide for Project M&E, [See review] originally available for download in 8 parts but now just as one PDF document. There are, additionally two later guides, a 2015 M&E Guide which is not quite as user-friendly as the 2002 guide, and a useful 2012 "M&E Manual Guide for IFAD Funded Projects in Vietnam"prepared by Vietnam's Development Policies and Research Center.
The European Commission's Capacity4dev.eu knowledge sharing platform has a number of interesting documents on Results-Oriented Monitoring, indicator development, and other subjects on monitoring and evaluation, online courses and webinars and several groups with relevant discussions. Also of use in understanding the European approach to RBM is the Updated 2018 EU Development Results Framework. The 2020 EuropeAid Results Oriented Monitoring Handbook [See discussion of earlier versions] is focused more on managing the consultants conducting monitoring, than it is on the application of RBM to project management
The donor agenciy and development organization websites vary in quality, and they do not always implement their own results-based management guidelines, but if you are working with them, it is wise to know how the different agencies, at least in theory, approach results-based management. This page is updated regularly, but the links sometimes expire as the agencies archive their old material. If that happens, a search for the title can often find them in other locations. Many of the UN agencies' publicly accessible websites are available in http only, so secure mode in Firefox may not work. If that occurs, try the download in Http only, or use another browser
Donor & Development Agency RBM, Planning & Evaluation Websites
Results-Relevant Audio Podcasts
Audio Podcasts available for listening or download that are relevant to results-based management and indicator development:
- All about indicators: More or Less: Behind the Stats, from the BBC [See review].
- Counterpoint, from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation [See review]
- Radiolab, from (among others) National Public Radio [See review]
Results Indicators in the news:
- The Guardian Datablog [See review]
- The Bad Science Blog
- The Fact Check Blog
- Behind the Numbers - at the Wall Street Journal [retired but still some interesting articles...
- Creative indicator presentations: The Gapminder Institute
- FullFact - Journalists and statisticians exposing bad practice in indicator interpretation.
And Results-Related Entertainment:
- Mark Anderson's cartoons at Andertoons.com
- The GIZ Thailand Results-Based Management animagraphic video on YouTube
- The animated Introduction to Results-Based Management on YouTube.
Other Useful Results-Based Management, Evaluation and Planning Tools
These websites have a variety of tools, opinions and news of potential relevance to people wanting to improve RBM skills:
- The 2019 Rule of Law Index, produced by the World Justice Project, an international civil society organization ranks 126 countries by 8 factors, using 44 rule of law indicators and discusses the methods and issues involved in such a ranking.
- The Cambodia Ministry of Planning's Monitoring And Evaluation: An Approach To Strengthen Planning In Cambodia [PDF - about 2 MB] is not revolutionary but it is a good, solid primer for line agencies on how to integrate Results-Based Management in national planning. It deserves a wider audience, but was originally buried deeply in some arcane and difficult to find location on the Ministry of Planning website. [See review]
- Sarah Holzapfel's The Role of Indicators in Development Cooperation published as a research study in 2014 by the German Development Institute provides a detailed, 238-page review of of how aid agencies use standard development indicators, and the advantages and disadvantages of doing so. [See review] A shorter version was published as a discussion paper, but the full study is worth reading.
- The World Resources Institute's Governance of Forests Initiative (GFI) Guidance Manual, (you will find it in the upper left-hand corner of that web page) contains a large number of indicators, and guidance on collecting data about governance in general, much of it applicable other issues, aside from forest management. [See review]
- The Project Management for Development Organization's manuals and guidelines for NGOs page, which archives a lot of useful material, when aid agencies, for example, remove the material from their own sites.
The University of Wisconsin's excellent online self-study module: Enhancing Program Performance with Logic Models. [See review]
- The Overseas Development Institute's Communications Toolkit page.
Rick Davies' Monitoring and Evaluation News [See review]
Philip Dearden's guide to Multi-Agency Planning Using the Logical Framework Approach from the University of Wolverhampton's Centre for International Development and Training. [See review]
- A collection of Mark Schacter's thoughtful and very useful writing on RBM and policy. [See review]
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- The Auditor-General of Canada's Implementing Results-Based Management: Lessons from the Literature.[See review]
- John Mayne's 2005 update on contribution analysis in Challenges and Lessons in Results-Based Management and his 2012 Contribution Analysis: Coming of Age?, a summary of the history of how contribution analysis, as a means of assessing results, has evolved since he introduced it in 2001 Contribution Analysis: Coming of Age?
- Working Across Translation, Suzie LeBlanc's short, eloquent argument for clear language in cross-cultural communication, written in September 2013, could easily be applied to anyone working in results-based management.
Bilateral Agency Results-Based Management Guides
- Global Affairs Canada has updated its Results-Based Management guides to include the GAC RBM Guide (2016), the GAC Results Reporting Guide (2018), and 12 other tools developed between 2018 and 2021. These are useful tools for any group, funded by any agency, which needs to develop logic models, performance measurement frameworks, and risk frameworks, to organize information for results reporting, and to develop indicators on a wide range of topics. A visual guide to the GAC RBM tools, descriptions of what they look like, an assessment of their utility for project design, management, M&E and results reporting, with links for downloads to all of them are included in this in-depth review of GAC RBM Guides updated in 2021.
- GiZ, the German technical cooperation agency has a number of M&E Guides and different interpretations of the GIZ results model. This article reviews the GIZ approach to Results-Based Management, and M&E and provides links to the RBM guides and other sites.
- CEDIL - The Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning, funded by the agency formerly known as DFID, has a number of research papers on aid and development, including a complex but useful 2018 analysis by Rick Davies of what needs to done to make Theories of Change more effective as management and evaluation tools.
- In 2016 and 2017 the OECD produced summaries of how RBM is being used in 6 bilateral aid agencies including those in Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. [PDF files]
- The USAID Learning Lab which focuses on collaborative learning and has a number of short learning resources, discussions and groups on Results-Based Management, and other topics from USAID and other agencies.
- Several SIDA publications on the theory, uses and abuses of the Logical Framework Approach [See reviews and discussion]. Some newer SIDA publications are now available including the 2016 Guide to Results-Based Management (RBM), efficient project planning with the aid of the Logical Framework Approach (LFA),a surprisingly interesting 2018 two and one-half hour video of presentations and discussion on how SIDA uses RBM as a learning tool, and a shorter interactive 2018 slide presentation on SIDA RBM, with accompanying audio.
- The Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ausguide 3.3: The Logical Framework Approach [See discussion]
- An old (1996) DANIDA Guide to the Logical Framework Approach, [See discussion]. There are also some archived and (in early 2021) some new technical guidelines on a variety of topics related to RBM, such as theory of change, risk management and the 2020 Fragility and Resilience Analysis Tool which has both a main text in PDF format and useful annexes as a separate document. Also of interest is the 2018 Guidelines for Programmes and Projects available as a PDF, and on the right side of the page, with a number of Word versions of tools and templates, all of which give some insights into the guide on project design, and RBM provided to the staff of the agency.
- The DFID How-To Note: Guidance on Using the Revised LFA [See discussion]. Also a useful 2010 DFID report on governance indicators and value for money, and its shorter 2011 briefing note on the same subject.
- The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation's website has over 1300 documents, including handbooks, guides, lessons learned reviews, policy papers, evaluations of Norwegian aid agency implementation of RBM, evaluations of projects, and partners, and a user-friendly search function. [See review]