Blog12 September 2025
I have friends who can write incredible and intricate songs with ease, but I’ve always struggled. Unsure where to start, I stick to singing Britney Spears covers on my acoustic guitar in the spare room when the house is empty. When I ask my friends how they begin writing, their answer is always the same: they never start from scratch. They keep notebooks of riffs, voice clips of melodies, scribbled lyrics, and audio samples. The trick is avoiding a blank page.
Sadly, my job isn’t to write pop hits, but to create theories of change.
When it comes to creating theories of change, the process feels similar: part art, part science. We evaluators aren’t just filling in forms; we’re turning abstract ideas into something meaningful, and that can communicate with a wider audience. That can feel daunting, because like songwriting, it puts your thoughts and ideas out in the open.
Playing your first note
Starting a theory of change from scratch is tough. A good first step is looking at examples, such as those on the TASO website or shared by higher education staff across the country. At Nottingham Trent University (NTU), some of our outreach programmes mirror others across the sector, so creating a ‘cover version’ makes sense when you’re just starting out. But just like when belting out Toxic in an empty house, the story isn’t mine – it belongs to Britney. Your own theory of change should reflect your specific programme, not someone else’s.That’s where TASO’s Mapping Outcomes and Activities Tools (MOATs) come in. They provide the riffs, samples and starting points to help shape a unique theory of change (your next big hit).
Writing your next hit using MOATs
At NTU, I often support colleagues in developing theories of changes. ‘Defining the problem’ usually comes first – asking ‘why’ questions and reflecting on the current context. Identifying ‘impact’ can be fairly straightforward, and generally link to improved access, progression, or success for a particular group. Often, these are tied to access and participation plan targets or team objectives and missions. So far, so good. We know the type of ‘song’ we want, and understand the ‘vibe’, but what about the tune or the melody?
Breaking impact into short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes is often a lot harder. This is the heart of mapping change. Outcomes can be both behavioural and non-behavioural, as well as abstract and difficult to conceptualise. That’s where MOATs help.
In the past, I’ve asked staff to take a MOAT, and pull out every outcome that applies to the impact they are looking to reach. However, what can often happen is that too many outcomes are selected, and it becomes difficult to understand what is being achieved.
If we have lots of outcomes, we also then would need a large amount of activities for these outcomes to happen, and suddenly your intervention is enormous. The song becomes meandering and unfocused, and 20 minutes long. Too much in there becomes impossible to decode (or listen to), so we need to keep streamlined. So, I take the reverse approach. Here my new method when coaching staff using a MOAT:
- Step 1: Delete irrelevant outcomes. This removes the ‘maybes’ early on.
- Step 2: RAG-rate the rest. Red = weak fit, amber = partial, green = strong fit. Remove the red items, but keep them aside for later.
- Step 3: Refine again. Challenge each outcome until the list is tight and focused.
This keeps the theory of change clear and avoids us trying to cram in everything.
But MOATs aren’t exhaustive. Sometimes your key outcomes won’t be listed, or you’ll need to tweak them to fit your context. That’s where you add your own unique touches and elements that make the song truly yours. Break an outcome down, or challenge exactly how it is defined. And then maybe revisit those ‘red’ items we discarded before.
Once the outcomes (the ‘melodies’) are set, we can move on to activities (maybe these are ‘lyrics’) and inputs (we could consider these as ‘instruments’). But without fully reviewing this step, the rest won’t work. That’s why MOATs are not an afterthought; they’re the best tool for overcoming the blank page.
A note to TASO
MOATs are incredibly useful, but could be even stronger. Imagine if outcomes linked directly to the TASO evidence toolkit, with a list of references or key pieces of theory attached to each, or if there were MOATs tailored to phases like ‘graduate outcomes’ or themes such as ‘socio-economic background’. How much can we use the MOATs to put together a theory of change that reflects a whole-provider approach? These tools are a great foundation, and I’d love to see them expanded. In the words of Britney: Gimme More. (Thanks for the challenge – we’ll bring this to our next planning session! – Editor)