Rigorous inquiry.
Practical use.
Plural Ground combines rigorous analysis with attention to people, context, power, difference, and practical use. There is no fixed sequence applied to every assignment.
People. Context.
Power. Difference.
These lenses shape what is examined, whose perspectives are considered, and how findings are interpreted.
Start with people
People are the starting point for understanding complexity and the reference point for understanding change.
Analysis begins with what people are trying to achieve, what they value, how they experience and navigate the systems around them, and how they themselves influence what happens.
People are actors with priorities, capabilities, relationships, knowledge, and strategies of their own. They are not simply recipients of programmes or passive users of systems.
Ground the analysis in context and evidence
Analysis is grounded in the context in which people, programmes, and organisations operate, including the realities of implementation and the wider conditions shaping what is possible.
Plural Ground brings together different forms of evidence and knowledge rather than relying on a single source or type of data.
This may include quantitative and qualitative evidence, programme data and documentation, contextual research, stakeholder knowledge, and lived and professional experience.
Evidence is not simply accumulated. It is interrogated:
What does it tell us? How strong is it? How was it produced? Whose knowledge is represented? What is missing? Where do different sources support or challenge one another?
The aim is a grounded understanding that remains traceable to the evidence beneath it.
Investigate power
Power shapes both the problem being examined and the process through which it is understood.
Analysis therefore considers whose priorities influence decisions, whose knowledge is treated as credible, who controls resources, who carries responsibility and risk, and who has the ability to act or influence change.
This includes examining the position of the organisation commissioning the work.
The question is not automatically “What should the organisation do?” but also “What role is it best placed to play?” That may be to lead, support, convene, facilitate, influence, or sometimes step back.
Plural Ground examines structural and systemic barriers: how institutions, rules, resources and relationships enable or constrain people’s choices. This includes identifying leverage points and realistic opportunities for intervention.
This also means asking what should change, for whom, and according to whose priorities. Who may benefit, who may lose, and who carries the risk? These questions help distinguish organisational ambitions from change that is relevant and realistic for the people involved.
Look for difference, not just agreement
Plural Ground does not assume that good consultation should produce consensus.
Analysis deliberately looks for convergence, divergence, contradictions, and gaps across evidence and perspectives.
Different accounts may reflect different experiences, positions, interests, relationships, or forms of power. A disagreement is therefore not necessarily a problem to be resolved; it may reveal something important about the issue itself.
Making those differences visible can produce a more useful understanding than smoothing them into a single narrative.
Question assumptions.
Test explanations.
Plural Ground uses critical inquiry throughout an assignment to test how a problem is understood and whether the emerging explanation holds up. Assumptions are made explicit and examined against evidence, different perspectives, and the realities of the context.
Plural Ground examines agreement, contradictions and gaps across evidence, deliberately seeks evidence that challenges the emerging view, and tests alternative explanations. The process makes space for disagreement. Where evidence is incomplete or contradictory, uncertainty is made visible and conclusions are revisited as understanding develops.
This scrutiny also looks for what is working, why it works, and what can be built upon. Recommendations draw on existing capabilities, relationships, and practices, alongside a clear account of what needs to change and why.
A modular toolkit.
Plural Ground combines research methods, evaluation approaches, analytical tools and facilitation practices to suit the assignment. A specific capability can be commissioned, or an appropriate combination developed during scoping.
Research & evidence
Research designs, data-collection methods and tools for interpreting evidence.
- Key informant interviews
- Focus group discussions
- Mixed-methods research and evaluation — Combining qualitative and quantitative methods around the question.
- Structured evidence review and synthesis — Reviewing and bringing together relevant evidence, with scope and selection criteria made explicit.
- Thematic analysis
- Evidence matrices — Organising evidence against questions and analytical themes.
- Triangulation — Comparing sources, methods and perspectives to strengthen interpretation.
Evaluation & understanding change
Evaluation approaches and frameworks for examining how and why change happens.
- Most Significant Change
- Theory-based evaluation
- Contribution Analysis
- Outcome Harvesting
- Outcome Mapping
- Theory of Change — Developing and examining causal pathways, assumptions and intended outcomes, including systems-informed applications.
Systems & power
Mapping tools and analytical approaches for understanding relationships, influence and system dynamics.
- Systems mapping — Examining interdependencies and feedback, including opportunities for intervention.
- Rich Pictures
- Stakeholder and actor relationship mapping — Examining actors’ roles, relationships and positioning.
- Process mapping
- Causal mapping and causal loop diagrams — Representing causal relationships and feedback loops.
- Stakeholder and power analysis
- Political Economy Analysis
- Resource-flow mapping — Examining how resources move between actors, with the scope—such as funding, information or materials—defined for each assignment.
Strategy, foresight & learning
Approaches and practices that support strategic choice, learning and adaptation.
- Scenario planning
- Driver mapping and analysis
- Strategic options appraisal — Comparing possible directions against explicit criteria and available evidence.
- Learning agenda and question development
- Assumption monitoring — Tracking whether the assumptions underpinning a strategy or programme continue to hold.
Participation & facilitation
Designing and facilitating participatory processes for programme development, strategy and learning.
- Stakeholder consultation
- Participatory workshop design and facilitation
- Appreciative Inquiry
- Facilitated collective sense-making
- Facilitated pause-and-reflect sessions
- Online workshop design and facilitation — Using collaborative platforms, including Mural, to support participation and collective sense-making.
Methods should earn their place.
Not every question needs systems mapping, extensive consultation, or multiple analytical frameworks. Tools are used proportionately, combining them where they add analytical value.
More participation is not automatically better participation. The relevant question is who needs to be involved, why, at what stage, and with what influence over the process and decisions that follow.
Designed to be used
Good analysis is only useful if people can engage with it and use it.
Plural Ground develops user-focused products shaped around the decisions they need to support and the people who will use them. Clarity, accessibility, and purposeful communication are prioritised over length or unnecessary complexity.
Outputs may include concise reports and briefing papers, decision-focused slide decks, visual frameworks and models, Theory of Change and systems visualisations, evidence summaries, practical tools, and facilitated presentations or sense-making sessions.
Where detailed analysis is required, the depth remains behind the conclusions and can be made traceable without requiring every audience to work through it.
The aim is to make complexity clear without oversimplifying it.