Rapid Outcome Assessment

A specific, named methodology (developed by ODI's RAPID programme) for assessing and mapping how a project's actions contributed to a change in policy or the policy environment. It draws on Outcome Mapping (tracking key actors the project influences), Episode Studies (tracing backward from a policy change to its causes), and Most Significant Change (prioritizing which changes matter). It has three stages: preparation (document review and informal conversations to draft the project's history and intended changes), a stakeholder workshop that maps actors' behavioral changes onto a timeline alongside project activities and external events, and a follow-up stage that triangulates and refines the resulting causal narrative through further interviews.