[MUSIC] Hi, this is Claudia Nau. Welcome to the second part of our workshop on Community-Based Causal Mapping. In this section we will build the actual cause and loop diagram with our stake holders. As before we will begin by preparing the room for our workshop. You will need a flip chart if your white board is not big enough. It needs to be big enough to show the cause and loop diagram. The valuables that be elicited in the previous workshop and some notes. You will also need markers. We have already transferred the variables that we derived in the last session onto the flip-chart. If you have a big white board, you can move them to one side. We also need to dedicate one corner of the whiteboard to a parking lot for variables and issues. That can't be resolved immediately. In order to build a causal loop diagram, we need a facilitator, who also has experience in modeling. Alternatively, we can have one facilitator and one modeller. The facilitator or modeller sits next to the whiteboard, because he or she will be writing on the whiteboard. We will also have a reporter sitting at the back or at the side of the room. He or she will be taking detailed notes of the discussion. Once all stakeholders are seated, we welcome them again. We begin our modeling session by reminding the group of the problem variable. Profit from healthy food options. We write the problem variable in the middle of the white board. It's a good idea to underline the problem variable, so it will be more visible in the final causal loop diagram. Next, you remind stakeholders of the list of variables that we have identified earlier. Now ,we begin the model building. A facilitator begins with asking participants to identify a variable from the list, that causes profit to change. Mr. Oliver, one of the store owners, suggests to add demand for healthy foods and link it to profit. Each time one of the stakeholders makes a suggestion, check if everyone agrees with the proposed relation. If everyone agrees, continue. Next, we ask how stakeholders want the arrow to point. Miss Franklin says, that demand drives profit. She wants the arrow to point on profit. We then crossed demand off the list of variables. This allows us to see which variables remain to be added to the causal loop diagram. Next, we need to identify the polarity of the arrow. We do so, by asking in what direction profit moves if demand goes up. Mr. Oliver says that if demand goes up and nothing else changes. Profit tends to go up, and everyone agrees. We add the plus sign to the arrow. We have drawn the first relationship of a variable and profit. We use the same process to add each of the other variables. So, let's go over the steps of the sequence again. We ask stakeholders to choose a variable. Be verified with everyone at the table, that they agree. Then we ask for the direction of the relationship. And finally we ask about the polarity of the relationship. There are variables that do not have a direct relationship with profit. Which is our problem variable. Have a look for example at sales price of Healthy Options or purchase of Healthy Options at scale. Be careful to look for logical chains that connect several variables. These connections often form a feedback loop. Let's have a look. You see that demand, profit, cost and sales price form a logic chain. But they do not form a feedback loop. There are two arrows that are going into profit, but none is going out of profit. You cannot go from profit to cost to close the loop. However, if you look at the CLD carefully you will see that there is an opportunity to close the loop. By connecting purchase of healthy options at scale. And costs of providing healthy options. If you see a potentially open loop, such as this. Ask your stakeholders, if closing the loop by connecting purchase at scale and costs, makes sense to them. Once a loop is closed, work through the logic of the loop again with your stakeholders. To make sure that you got the logic right. This is important. Each time you close a loop, pay attention to highlighting it's effect on the problem variable. Point out the feed back effect that purchase at scale, has some profit for example. We continue building our causal loop diagram but what happens if stakeholders disagree with each other? Mr. Fairmount, the business, expert suggests that increasing sales prices might increase profit. Because the marginal profit of each unit sold increases. But the marketing expert, Mrs. Wakefield, argues that the arrow could also point the other way. Because increasing profit could allow lowering sales prices and increasing demand further. Miss Franklin, however, says that in her experience there is no room for increasing prices. Because at current prices, demand is already very low in her store. And increasing prices further, would lower demand even more. Mr. Oliver agrees with Miss Franklin, and he is skeptical of being able to lower prices, too. He says his profit margins are too small for lowering prices. If there is no easy solution after prompting your stakeholders for clarification. Park the issue in the temporary parking lot for now. And assure your stakeholders that you will get back to the parked issues at the end of the session. If stakeholders bring up new variables, check if others agree. Mr. Douglass, our third store owner, brings up an issue he didn't think of before. He says, for him, high costs of healthy foods is not just about buying at scale. But also having to go buy fresh food repeatedly. Or having to go to different places to get healthy food. All this requires additional planning and extra trips. It increases his cost of providing healthy options. Mister Oliver and Mister Franklin agree. In our example, it is easy to add the new variable. If it is difficult to integrate the new idea at the current state of UCLV. Ask your stake holders, if they're okay with parking the new variable for later. After you have integrated all variables from the variable list in your causal loop diagram. Check the feedback loops with your stakeholders one more time. Now is the time to return to your parked issues. We ask our stakeholders again, what they think about the link of sales prices and profit in their stores. After some discussion our stakeholders agree that the effect of sales price and profit depends on other factors. That might vary by store or product. Such as, the sensitivity of demand to price changes, the quantity of item sold and the profit margin of each product. We decide to leave the error out but we'll mention the discussion in detail in the final material. Finally, we conclude the session by reminding stake holders of what we are going to do with the final product. And highlight the most important conclusions from the causal loop diagram. Our goal is to use this causal loop diagram in a focus group. To develop solutions with store owners and business experts, to improve profitability of healthy options. If we take a close look at our causal loop diagram. We see that lowering cost and our sales prices could be very important for increasing demand for healthier options. We see that avoiding wastage and purchasing at scale. Important variables that could be targeted by interventions to reduce costs. Finally, we conclude the session by asking one more time if stakeholders would like to provide more feedback. We thank our stakeholders and close the meeting. So, that is the end of our causal mapping workshop. Thank you for working with us through these sessions. In this part, we have built together a causal loop diagram to answer an important question. For improving the availability of healthy fruits in low income neighborhoods. Causal mapping provides an excellent way to capitalize on stake holders knowledge. And allows us to share ownership of the research and problem solving process with stake holders. Thank you very much for your attention and I wish you much success with your own research.
