Find where there is room for change.
An opportunity point is a point in the system where change is both possible and likely to matter – and where a well-designed fomentFoment: A small, deliberate, time-bound intervention designed to test and influence how the system responds. can test what that opening may produce.
Shared water concerns can create an opening.
The full reading offers an illustrative example: several smallholder communities face upstream extraction. Each has little influence alone, but their shared concern about water quality creates a reason to connect. Supporting a collective voice can change the relationship with upstream users. This is a proposition to test, not a reported project outcome.
Not every opportunity can be seen from the desk.
The progression from obvious to occluded reflects how much engagement is required to recognize the opening. Select each of the four levels.
Be honest about how deep you can work.
A useful opportunity point may sit at the level of instruments, information, regulationRegulation: Any way actors shape what others can or cannot do, including rules, money, prices, custom and persuasion. It is broader than government regulation. or intent. Necessary action at one depth does not automatically change the others.
Six configurations can reveal an opening.
Apply these categories to the strand mapPower Vista and strand map: A map of who influences whom, through which practices and with what weight. The full reading treats the Power Vista as a strand map read through power relations. and Power Vista. They are prompts for judgement, not boxes into which every landscape must fit.
An opportunity point is a reading, not a guarantee.
Before committing resources, test whether the opening is consequential, reachable, receptive and ethically workable.
If this interaction changes, could it materially influence system headingHeading: The direction in which the landscape is currently moving, produced by many actors and their interactions. rather than only produce an output?
Can the intervention or its partners reach the relevant actors and geographic range?
Is there evidence of giveGive: Room for movement: a condition in which the system may be shifted. – alignment, tension, weakening, reciprocity or an emerging alternative practice?
Can the opening be tested without transferring unacceptable risk to low-power actors or violating rights?
Continue through connected concepts
Read the full Opportunity points chapter.
The full reading provides the conceptual foundations, examples, sources and methodological detail behind this page.
Terms used on this page
- Strand
- An actor group and the practices through which it shapes the landscape over time.
- Heading
- The direction in which the landscape is currently moving, produced by many actors and their interactions.
- Regulation
- Any way actors shape what others can or cannot do, including rules, money, prices, custom and persuasion. It is broader than government regulation.
- Give
- Room for movement: a condition in which the system may be shifted.
- Foment
- A small, deliberate, time-bound intervention designed to test and influence how the system responds.
- Power Vista and strand map
- A map of who influences whom, through which practices and with what weight. The full reading treats the Power Vista as a strand map read through power relations.
