The journey from design to implementation is fraught with obstacles; FReMO seeks to identify then minimise the impact of these. Four major obstacles - organisational culture, stakeholders, the collection and interpretation of data, and ensuring clear and replicable procedure - are discussed below.
Organisational culture refers to the internal environment of any organisation. It includes hierarchical structures, management-to-staff relationships, staff-to-staff relationships, relationships with different client groups the organisation deals with, overt and covert communication, and the formal and informal ‘rules’ that guide conduct and behaviour both internally and externally.
Organisational culture has been the subject of much study and discussion since an organisation’s ‘culture’ can increase or decrease its successful outcomes, depending on its alignment or fit with organisational aims and objectives, individual clients or consumer groups.
Western-based organisational sponsorship or driving of any initiative targeting Māori may be considered a cross-cultural exercise and be expected to encounter at least some alignment difficulties (Fong & Gibbs, 1995). For example:
When designing a developmental initiative, policy or project that targets Māori, the host’s organisational culture must be examined for fit and alignment with expected outcomes and implementation plan.
Points of conflict or tension may be counteracted by obtaining staff or manager buy-in, by effective training, or by minor restructuring of infrastructure.
Often, identifying a clash between organisational culture and the initiative’s aims or implementation strategies means a realistic reappraisal of expected outcomes. In this case the initial outcomes may be more realistically regarded as long-term goals, with short-term and medium-term goals including repositioning the organisation to reduce and counter obstacles over a specified period of time.
It may sometimes be impossible for the initiative to get off the ground within the structures and parameters of the host organisation. In this case, consideration may be given to setting up a more appropriate satellite infrastructure, with funding, an ‘arms-length’ monitoring role, and focus on outcomes rather than implementation process being the sponsoring organisation’s primary role.
Stakeholders are people or groups with a vested interest in any aspect of the policy, project or initiative under consideration.
For the Department of Corrections, this includes the New Zealand public, the Minister of Corrections, departmental management and staff, inmates and those on probation, and Iwi groups, including all rural and urban Māori.
Most initiatives generated by the Department will need powerful internal sponsors to get off the ground. Any large organisation is littered with anecdotes about projects that ‘never made it’ because their initiators ignored due process, and got offside with people who would have been their most useful allies and support people.
With any project or idea focusing on Māori, it is particularly important that the work’s aims and rationale are presented to all those who can influence its development and survival.
Ensuring support and minimising any perceived threat that the project may present to existing projects takes some care. Most excellent projects complement work already going on, although it is likely that a really successful project will highlight any deficits in similar projects that have preceded it.
Māori stakeholders include all Māori, but particularly Iwi within whose rohe, or area, the project is to be run or implemented, Māori forming the research population, Māori managers and field staff, the Manager of Cultural Perspectives, in-house cultural consultants, and Māori with research expertise who may form part or all of the design and implementation team.
Māori stakeholders must be considered to ensure project co-operation and buy-in, but also to ensure access to the substantial Māori knowledge-base that is crucial to any successful outcome.
Engaging in the process of collaboration with Māori stakeholders will often highlight any deficits in the primary rationale supporting the project, and insight into the work needed to achieve Māori buy-in and support.
Once on board, Māori stakeholders will give the Māori perspective, a Tikanga Māori analysis, advice on any conflict within the organisational culture of the department or host organisation, and insight into the specifics of conducting research with Māori.
As noted previously, data collection and interpretation is a cultural enterprise that can produce skewed and virtually useless data unless care is taken to consider impinging factors and how to measure them.
Simply reading up on main-stream literature, for instance, and extrapolating this directly into a situation involving Māori is to assume there are no socio-cultural differences between the two groups, even in the absence of evidence to substantiate this assumption.
Drawing on the perspective of Māori participants and cultural advisors will generate a range of other factors to be considered and investigated, thus adding a richness of data and a closer fit with the situation Māori actually experience.
Three areas must be considered in any information-gathering exercise involving Māori:
1. What important factors are experienced specifically by Māori?
2. How can this information be accurately gathered then interpreted?
3. What important factors do Māori share with the main-stream population?
All three areas require substantial Māori participation. This should include Māori who are the research sample, but also expert involvement into the research design and methodology, what information will be gathered, how it is to be gathered, and how it may be interpreted in a way that maintains the integrity of the source material.
Māori often respond to questionnaires quite differently to their Pakeha counterparts, thereby skewing the database and its interpretation if not taken into account.
Focus groups may be a more appropriate way to gather information from Māori, but this still necessitates being able to communicate effectively with participants and elicit the right information.
Once the data is gathered, a process must be set up to ensure it is not re-interpreted by the method used to collate it. Collation usually involves highlighting some material while other material is seen as peripheral, and ignored or downplayed.
A researcher or analyst unfamiliar with Māori-derived material will be inclined to fit the data to their own world view, interpreting its meaning and implications on the basis of their own criteria.
This situation may, again, produce skewed data, or material unrepresentative of the situation or phenomena being measured.
It is logical to consult the literature related to any project under consideration, to discover the findings and ideas of other workers with pertinent expertise and experience. But it is important to critically analyse research findings and recommendations for their applicability to a Māori population:
These questions identify the degree to which mainstream literature is relevant and valid in respect of the Māori population under investigation.
The literature may be useful, but should not be applied without critical analysis, placing it in a context that makes it clear what needs to be modified and enhanced to make it valid for use with Māori. Alternatively, if the literature has only minor relevance, it should be treated accordingly, with a thorough investigation of issues more specific to a Māori population.
The science of ‘programme evaluation’ is a pragmatic system that is based around the evaluation of all three phases of any formal initiative, that is, the formation or design phase, the process or implementation phase, and the outcome phase (Waa, etal, 1998).
Essentially programme evaluation has been designed to provide a rationale for how and why something has been successful, and to what degree, and how it may be replicated to achieve similar results. If carried out correctly programme evaluation also provides enough information so that deficits in an initiatives design and implementation may be highlighted and rectified.
All these qualities serve FReMO well in that programme evaluation provides an information gathering vehicle to house an entire project or initiative. The projects rationale is included, as well as it’s entire developmental history, the unique and other processes that have formed it, the strengths and weaknesses inherent in it’s design and outcomes, how it may be modified and how it may be replicated.
Any initiative that acknowledges Māori knowledge and perceptions will encounter material that may never have been formally documented and recorded (Health Research Council, 1998).
As programme evaluation requires documentation of all steps, rationale, and processes throughout the project from design and implementation to outcome, there is a comprehensive record that notes the new processes that were encountered, how all data was collected, and how it was interpreted. The factors that have been responsible for successful outcomes can be tracked, thereby enabling future projects to acknowledge these and create similar results. Where the outcomes have been disappointing, documentation of the project throughout each stage should allow a review to identify where the deficits occurred and how they may be countered in the future.
Documentation of procedure, of process, and of any data collection is integral to the success of the FReMO analysis. Documentation must be a critical activity that notes the essential aspects of the formative or design stage, the process or implementation stage, and the outcome stage.
Documentation need not be a laborious task, but rather a collection of bullet points that identify the primary factors and processes at each stage. These must be explicit enough to allow an expansion of each point, should the need arise, for review, for any writing up of the project, or for further development.