Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
Summary
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a community process and methodology focused on positive change and identifying community assets. AI can be adapted for use in a wide range of community events, projects, and long-term planning processes.
Tool Description
AI seeks to locate, highlight and illuminate the “life-giving” forces in a community. Its aim is to generate knowledge by focusing on community strengths, expanding “the realm of the possible”, and helping community members first visualize, then implement a collectively desired future.
AI was developed in the early 1990s, primarily to help corporations and institutions improve their competitive advantage or organizational effectiveness. It has since been applied at the community level domestically and in developing countries. It involves a significant shift in emphasis from local problems to local achievements, from participation to inspiration. By identifying and reinforcing positive, constructive actions, relationships and visions within a community, AI encourages local ownership of activities that contribute to sustainable development and secure livelihoods.
Appreciative inquiry usually progresses through four stages, known as the 4-Is:
1 - Initiate - Discovering periods of excellence and achievement
Through interviews and storytelling, participants remember significant past achievements and periods of excellence. When was their organization or community functioning at its best?
2 - Inquire - Dreaming an ideal organization or community
In this step, people use past achievements to visualize a desired future.
3 - Imagine - Designing new structures and processes
This stage is intended to be provocative––to develop, through consensus, concrete short- and long-term goals that will achieve the dream.
4 - Innovate - Delivering the dream
In this stage, people act on their provocative propositions, establishing roles and responsibilities, developing strategies, forging institutional linkages and mobilizing resources to achieve their dream.
Summary of Costs
$0-99
Associated Costs
- Consulting
- Facilitation
- Project Management
- Training
Strengths
- AI is more positive than many processes, since it focuses on a community’s assets instead of problems.
- AI empowers citizens and communities to take charge of their futures, rather than relying on experts.
- AI can be adapted to a wide range of topics, communities, processes or projects, budgets, and timelines.
- AI has been used extensively in many different projects and situations, so examples and lessons are widely available.
Limitations
- AI may not identify important aspects of a community’s situation or goals, since it only focuses on positive elements.
- AI is typically not used by itself, but only as part of a larger process or event.
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Submitted By:
svannostrand
Last Updated: March 30, 2012, 8:51 pm
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