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The European Union’s Landscapes for Our Future programme supports 22 integrated landscape management projects across 19 countries and 3 sub-regions across the Global South.

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Home › The ILM Playbook › Adaptivity
ILM PLAYBOOK Concept map Adaptivity Read full chapter
GLIMPSEGRASPEXPLOREDEEP DIVE
Adaptivity

Design the intervention to change itself.

Adaptivity is the inherent ability of an intervention to modify itself in response to learning, systemic pressure and opportunities as the landscape changes.

Trial, learn and adjustWithin agreed objectives and commitments, actions can be treated as propositions whose value is tested against the system response.
Build for surpriseUse planned indicators alongside information that can detect weak signals, surprise and effects that were not predicted.
Correct the headingThe itself may need revision as experience accumulates.
RELEASE
OBSERVE
ADJUST
Learning moves in loops.Reject, learn, start again – or pursue, learn and adapt.
Grasp · Four adaptive capabilities

Adaptivity has to be designed into the intervention.

Select each dimension to see what it requires operationally.

Explore · Two recurring loops

Every cycle should change the next one.

When the foment does not hold

Go back and reconsiderRelease a foment and read the response. When it does not hold, learning sends the team back to reconsider the approach or opportunity point. Stop or redesign rather than repeat the same action. Release Readresponse Learn &reconsider Stop or redesign

Discard or redesign, update the maps and start again with a better reading of resistance or harm.

When the response is promising

Continue with learning and further connectionsRelease a foment and read the response. When it is promising, learn and reinforce what appears to be working. Build further connections and keep reading the response as the intervention develops. This remains provisional, not an automatic instruction to scale up. Release Readresponse Learn &reinforce

Reinforce what appears to be working, but keep sensing for distributional effects and changing conditions.

Adaptivity is cumulative. A cycle is not adaptive merely because activity changed; the learning must alter the next proposition, map, decision or team arrangement.
Team ATeam BTeam CTeam DLearningthe learning hub
Explore · The mosaic approach

Distribute action. Curate learning.

Semi-autonomous teams can work different practices and , including actors beyond the landscape’s geographic edge. The mosaic is held together by shared sensing and cross-learning, not by making every team identical.

Distribution multiplies opportunities for emergence and reduces exposure to one failure. Without a learning function, however, it simply produces fragmented projects.

Deep dive · Build the adaptive architecture

Learning needs clear decision rights, resources and a safe operating space.

Decision rights

Clarify which changes can be made within delegated authority, which require approval, and how activities, budgets, indicators, team roles or propositions can be revised through agreed governance and change-control arrangements.

Contingency

Hold time and resources in reserve for emerging opportunities, unexpected pressure and redesign.

Surprise-oriented sensing

Use narrative and qualitative evidence alongside planned indicators, and attend to absence and weak signals.

Psychological safety

Create a deliberative team space in which junior, local and dissenting interpretations can alter the shared read.

Proposition and decision logs

Record what was believed, what happened, what changed and why. This turns adaptation into accountable learning.

Heading review

Schedule moments when accumulated evidence can correct the Alternative rather than only the route towards it.

If senior interpretations always prevail, the learning structure collapses regardless of its formal design.

Continue through connected concepts

Foments

Use bounded propositions to generate information through action.

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Monitoring, learning and evaluation

Connect system response to accountable evidence and decisions.

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Team design

Build the relational vehicle capable of learning and changing.

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Alternative Heading

Correct the bearing when accumulated evidence says it is wrong.

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Full reading

Read the full Adaptivity chapter.

The full reading provides the conceptual foundations, examples, sources and methodological detail behind this page.

Open full chapter PDF →

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Terms used on this page
Heading
The direction in which the landscape is currently moving, produced by many actors and their interactions.
Alternative Heading
A better direction an intervention seeks to support, revised as it learns. It is not a fixed blueprint for a final state.
Interaction space
Where strands meet and influence one another. It can extend beyond the landscape’s geographic boundary.