Imogen and Mark Robinson explore how storytelling and narrative approaches can transform our understanding of social change, drawing from their extensive experience with Most Significant Change methodology and beyond.

Mark Robinson's consultancy Thinking Practice:

https://www.thinkingpractice.co.uk/

Discussed in the podcast:

Rick Davies & Jess Dart's 2005 book 'The most significant change technique: A guide to its use':

https://www.mande.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2005/MSCGuide.pdf

Case Study on Ark: Stockton Arts Centre:

https://arconline.co.uk/about-us/what-we-do/

MSC training with Future Arts Centres network:

https://futureartscentres.org.uk

Will Storr: 'The Science of Storytelling' :

https://www.thescienceofstorytelling.com

Failspace: How can the cultural sector better recognise and learn from failures?

https://www.culturalvalue.org.uk/our-work/failspace/#intro

Imogen runs a social research consultancy Imogen Blood & Associates:

https://www.imogenblood.co.uk/

She also provides MSC training:

https://www.seralliance.org/

Chapters

0:00 - intro

1:00 - Mark's background and career

7:53 - What is Most Significant Change (MSC)?

10:50 - Applying MSC in the cultural sector

16:15 - Good tool for complex projects

18:25 - MSC gives a structure for thinking about stories

19:50 - Exploring cause and effect through stories

20:06 - 'The science of storytelling' book

22:49 - Particular fit between MSC and the cultural sector?

24:10 - MSC countering evaluation fatigue

28:17 - Limitations or considerations

35:06 - Complementing MSC with 'FailSpace'

38:10 - Deciding what is 'significant'

41:16 - Impact of involving the board in MSC

42:50 - MSC from using MSC

48:45 - Writing MSC stories

55:00 - A title for your story?