Imagine if the solution to a problem you have were already there? Well, positive deviance (PD) is an approach based on this premise. It identifies outlier positive results to find out what works, assuming that someone facing similar constraints to yours has already figured out a solution. This blog talks about what PD is, examples, advantages and disadvantages of this model, and extra resources.
What is positive deviance?
As public servants, one of the challenges we face is the lack of resources. The Positive Deviance approach looks at your peers -countries, cities, or members of your community- with similar resources, facing similar challenges than yours, that still get positive results. PD focuses on understanding how that happens to find better alternatives to improve development outcomes.
There have been remarkable results using this approach. Such as a 65 to 80 percent reduction in childhood malnutrition in twenty-two Vietnamese provinces with a total population of 2.3 million. A 30 to 50 percent reduction in childhood malnutrition in communities across forty-one countries worldwide. A 30 to 62 percent reduction in transmissions of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (MRSA) in three U.S. hospitals, and in the process, a bridging of the status divide in hospital hierarchies.
When to use positive deviance
In development, we face three types of problems: simple, complicated, and complex.
Complex problems require an understanding of the unique local conditions and the capacity to adapt as conditions change. This type of problem is transaction-intensive, requires several interactions, and is discretionary, individuals have to make decisions with imperfect information.
PD works best for complex problems, like malnutrition. The success of programs to improve nutrition depends highly on individuals’ conditions and behaviors.
Principles of positive deviance
PD is a tool for adaptive work. These are some of its main principles:
- PD is deeply rooted in the community. Everyone that is part of the problem is also part of the solution. All the process is owned and lead by the community. They identify uncommon but successful strategies and design ways to replicate them. Community members then create their own benchmarks and monitor progress.
“Don’t do anything about me without me”
- PD relies on social proof. You recognize that “someone just like you” can get results, even in the worst-case scenarios.
- PD emphasizes practice instead of knowledge. This approach focuses on the how instead of the what and the why.
Step by step guide
1. Define the problem. Identify the current perceived causes, challenges and constraints, common practices, and desired outcomes.
2. Determine the presence of PD individuals or groups.
3. Discover uncommon but successful behaviors and strategies through inquiry and observation.
4. Design activities to allow community members to practice the discovered behaviors.
5. Monitor and evaluate the resulting project or initiative. Document and share improvements as they occur. Help the community discern the effectiveness of the initiative.
For more details, please check the field guide by the Positive Deviance Initiative here.
Examples
Some of the common uses of the PD approach are in health care, nutrition, health and to attend vulnerable populations. In this section, I highlight three.
Vietnam: Applying positive deviance to reduce child malnutrition
The application of PD to reduce child malnutrition in Vietnam is perhaps the most cited story of this approach’s implementation. In the 1990s, 65% of children between 1 and 4 in Vietnamese villages were malnourished. Save the Children’s mandate was to find a sustainable, large-scale solution based on local resources that would show results within six months.
The NGO’s staff started by identifying families whose kids showed no sign of malnutrition, the ‘positive deviants’. They discovered that those families would add shrimp, crab and fish to their children’s meals. All available resources to the community, but considered inappropriate for kids. Save the Children then organized a strategy with the community to teach them about these new practices. Within two years, 80% of the children participating in the project were no longer malnourished.
Positive deviance in public sector reforms
This paper by Harvard Professor Matt Andrews looks at cases of public sector reform in developing nations. The author used three criteria to select the cases: those considered abnormally successful, with enough information to allow analysis and that covered a variety of reform types. 30 studies were selected from Princeton University’s repository of Innovations for Successful Societies (ISS) cases.
The paper focuses on learning about the processes through which positive deviants arise and are implemented. “The majority of reforms in the sample seem to have been motivated by a problem, implemented through flexible processes involving experimentation, and led by groups”. Over 90 percent of the reforms produced hybrid products that did not resemble pure form best practices. “There were some reforms that seem to have been motivated by clearly defined solutions, implemented according to plan, led by a single leader, and ultimately proved successful in introducing a functional ‘best practice’ product”.
The term “implementation” understates the complexity of the task of carrying out projects that are affected by a high degree of initial ignorance and uncertainty. Here “project implementation” may often mean in fact a long voyage of discovery in the most varied domains, from technology to politics.
Albert Hirschman, Development Projects Observed (1967: 35)
What’s next: Examples of positive deviance and big data
There are three advantages of applying positive deviance approach. First, progress is made quickly, because you are using existing resources. Second, the results can be sustained in time because the solutions implemented reside in the community. Third, the approach can be broadly applied given that it’s very likely there are positive deviants in every community.
One of the challenges with this approach is that it relies on field surveys, which can be costly and time-consuming. New initiatives are trying to combine the power of big data, to identify outliers, and positive deviance to understand in depth the difference in variations of these outliers.
In Indonesia, for example, they combined statistical data from the agriculture census and open-access Earth Observation big data to identify and geolocate rice farming villages with relatively high productivity. They then try to match statistical data to see if any intervention has been responsible for such high productivity. Their intention is to then visit a subset of outlier villages and do a final round of ground-based validation to understand in depth the result.
A similar approach has been used in Mexico to identify areas, with a particular focus on public spaces, in Mexico City where women are safer. In Germany, with the spread of COVID-19, a team identified districts that flattened the curve unexpectedly well to try to replicate those actions in other districts.
Final thoughts
Positive deviance helps us identify successful cases facing similar constraints. Their focus on understanding how that happens is one of the most valuable characteristics of this approach. While it doesn’t work for all types of problems, it’s a promising approach for some of the complex ones we face in development.
Extra resources
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, check out these resources:
- Positive Deviance Collaborative, where you’ll find field guides, tools, training available, case studies and more.
- Data powered positive deviance, is a global initiative collaboratively created by GIZ Data Lab, Pulse Lab Jakarta, UN Accelerator Labs Network and the University of Manchester Centre for Digital Development. The international collective is dedicated to utilizing big data to find effective locally developed solutions to complex problems.
