SCALE is daunting. Scaling from a prototype or pilot to a state-wide or country-wide model involves a time-lapse which is difficult to assess. While Pilot projects get done in 6-18 months, the full scale implementations can go on for many years. Eg. TNUSSP, IIHS work in Tamil Nadu.
I see 3 clear areas:
1. Technology, Process, Facilities etc. = HARDWARE -->
2. Acceptance, SOP practice, Behavioral Change, Adapting the best practices in society etc. = SOFTWARE -->
3. Finance, Administration & Political support = POWER -->

The (1) is similar to any major EPC project. Eg. Power station, Oil Field development, Hospital technology etc. Efficient, effective scoping, technology, procurement, Installation & commissioning, Operations and withdrawal are all suitable for strong project planning. SOPs, Quality systems, DCS/SCADA/ Data Driven MIS can make this happen.

The (2) looks similar to organization development, alignment, team building (Form-Storm-Norm-Perform model), Training & Development, Career Model. Equal Opportunity employment etc. There is however a big difference in these 'sociology' systems from controlled organization setup. The “system” and “stakeholders” are never taken into any group identity or a common unit (unlike in a company). Yet, a number of approaches in organization assist here too. RANAS BCT for behavioral change; Super-Amma program (London school of hygiene & tropical medicine) both point to some COMMON GUIDING FORCES^a. This area can benefit from methods and metrics already in use with HR, Competency Management, Decentralized organization models. They can be adapted?.

The (3) is very sensitive as it "powers" the entire transformation initiative. ROI, Cost-Benefits, Metrics are not practical in programs like “Full Sanitation Chain”. Similar constraint occurs while forming a research or technology institute. A 5 year look-ahead commitment is how the projects can ascertain support. These can be qualified with clear performance (or growth) criteria under (1) and some kind of adapted measures under (2).

VISIBILITY is often achieved in large engineering and technology systems by following FORMAL management tools. A simple mechanism to document and present the entire program -- Pilot -to- Full-scale is necessary.
The risk of excesses (or deficiency) in technology or equipment is addressed during project design for major EPC work. Strategies are evaluated using management tools. Technology is acquired by measuring ‘Value of Information’. Some (or more) of them become useful in (1) scale-up.

Are there books, manuals or best practice write-ups for socially intensive projects? I will continue searching and learning!
Reference:
(a) forum.susana.org/media/kunena/attachment...surveyFirstDraft.pdf

Hi Depinder!

That is indeed a very interesting question - and quite crucial for any consideration of sustainability.
My reply here comes from the perspective of our regional Fit for School program, implemented by GIZ, focusing on 4 countries: Philippines, Indonesia, Lao and Cambodia. We work closely with the Ministries of Education in these countries to improve WASH in schools, with a strong focus on school based management (SBM) and the establishment of hygiene practices.
So basically our behavior change intervention first targets school managment staff (and their supporting structures, i.e. district and provincial education office staff), so that they become better planners, implementers and managers of their WASH facilities and activities in their school.
The second behavior change step is then that children carry out hygiene and cleaning activities daily, thereby becoming accustomed and integrating it into not only their daily routines, but also their habits.

Now, having said all this, we actually work in a way that our interventions stop at the district level - so we don´t have any direct involvement with the school staff or students (who I just talked about). This is where your question comes in. We rely a lot on a cascade type model, varying from country to country, but the idea is basically that there is a national policy/guideline developed by MOE on national level, ideally a training to provincial staff by the national level, and then a training of district staff by the provincial level.
Loss of quality and information is of course a concern, which is why we found that the use of videos is a reliable tool to convey information in a relatively short amount of time, designed in an appealing way and most of all not losing the core message, cause the video stays the same.
The MOE Staff on different levels are encouraged to embed the videos (and accompanying manuals) into regular meetings ideally.
E.g. in Lao PDR, the national level reserves a spot to talk about WASH in Schools for pre- and primary schools every year towards the end in their annual meeting with all provincial offices of education.
In turn, provincial offices are encouraged to train their districts (mixed modalities: we financed some trainings, MOE financed others, provincial offices used their budget) and follow up in regular meetings.
Same for district level: they are encoureaged to make it a regular topic in their meetings with school cluster heads or principals. The idea is to avoid the need for costly and externally organized trainings, but much like the daily school routines, make the topic a routine topic in their existing meeting structures.

We tried documenting how these steps have helped scaling up our Fit for School program in Sisattanak district in Lao PDR and in Kampot province in Cambodia. Below are the links to the publications/videos.
Happy to elaborate more if this answer is to generic for your query!

Lao PDR Scale Up Study
Lao PDR Scale Up Video

Cambodia Scale Up Study

There are many agencies that are engaged in capacity building. However scale does vary. Some agencies do just one or two trainings and some may do repeat trainings over a year or more. Can you do repeat trainings without a Training Manual or Workbook? With just presentations? Is there a Trainers Manual required for repeat trainings, as a reference guide for any new trainer? Maybe not. But what has been the experience we are interested in knowing for our own work of SCBP.

What have been the experience of repeat trainings delivered by agencies in WASH? Not Online trainings, but direct face to face trainings. Is there any report of lessons learnt from delivering trainings at scale?

Kindly direct us to a source. Thanks.

Dear Depinder,

My reply in this thread is hopefully raising attention for your question and getting more people to respond.

Could you explain what you mean by "at scale" here? I thought your work and website was already operating "at scale", so in which sense will this new phase be different to what you have been doing already? (your website: scbp.niua.org/)

By the way, new training materials were recently added to the library, bringing the total to 117. Perhaps you find something useful here (this is the filter result when filtering for all training resources):
www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/resource...8&vbl_2%5B%5D=&test=

(I just noticed that the materials from your website have also been included now; thanks for bringing them to our attention here ).

Elisabeth

Is there anyone who has an article, analysis of or lessons learnt note from implementation of a capacity building programme at scale?

We would greatly benefit from this experience sharing as we move into the next phase of Capacity building for FSM in India.

Thanks.

Depinder