An overview of the three lenses and four free tools that sit behind the Field Guide. Designed for evaluation practitioners and pilot-funded teams. The full Companion and Toolkit are linked below.
Scalability, Scaling, and Scale aren't sequential phases. They're ongoing questions that should keep getting asked as an innovation matures. Each lens has its own toolkit. Click a lens to read more.
A judgement made before scaling begins. Whether the innovation could be expanded under real-world conditions while retaining enough effectiveness to be worth the effort. Scalability is assessed; it isn't achieved.
The deliberate process of introducing the innovation through a delivery structure, in a system that pushes back. Choosing a pathway, designing the business model, building the partnerships, planning what is fixed and what is flexible.
The ongoing review work once an innovation is being delivered at scale. Drift is the default; holding fidelity requires deliberate design. Sustainability is continued benefit, not maintained form.
The first lens is the one most often skipped. Funding environments tend to reward ambitious answers, and "we want to scale" can become an assumption before it's tested. The Companion treats this as a serious question with two halves.
Technical justification. Does the evidence from the pilot give reasonable grounds to believe the innovation will hold up under real-world conditions, at greater reach? If the conditions widen, what holds and what breaks?
Moral justification. Who decides? Who benefits? Who bears the risk? An innovation can be technically justified and still not morally justified if the scaling effort doesn't share its risks fairly.
The decision can also legitimately rule scaling out. "Sometimes bigger isn't better." Justification can stop scaling, not just authorise it.
Pilots are usually complicated. Many moving parts, but a known relationship between cause and effect. Scaling moves the work into a complex space, where the system adapts to what the innovator does and the relationship between cause and effect becomes visible only after the fact.
The planning task is different from running a pilot. It pulls in business modelling, partnerships, governance, and team design in ways pilot delivery rarely does. The pathway is a current state, not a permanent identity. Most organisations move across pathways as they mature.
Three things weigh particularly heavily: a realistic business model that matches the pathway; multi-level stakeholder buy-in; and partnerships that already have a foothold in the context being scaled into.
An innovation at scale isn't a finished thing. Drift is the default. Fidelity has to be held deliberately while adaptation is allowed at the edges, and the balance shifts as conditions change.
Sustainability isn't maintenance. It's continued benefit. An innovation can be technically maintained while quietly losing the effects that justified scaling it. The Fidelity Checker is designed to surface that gap regularly, not as a one-off audit.
The right questions at scale move past "does it work?" to "why does it work, and under what conditions?". That's continuous re-questioning, not periodic assessment.
A conversational prompt at the decision point between pilot and scale.
Five questions to help guide the decision between pilot and scale. Click any letter for the deeper prompts.
Sub-prompts
Scaling efforts that don't fit the originating organisation compete with the rest of the work. A clear match between mission, strategy, and capacity is one of the strongest predictors of successful scaling. Section 2.6 of the Companion has the full reasoning.
Sub-prompts
If the core can't be named, the scaling decision has nothing to act on. The Scaling Focus question is unpacked in Section 2.3 of the Companion.
Sub-prompts
This is the technical justification. Both the strength of the pilot evidence and its plausibility under real-world conditions need to be credible. Section 2.6 of the Companion walks through the assessment frameworks behind this.
Sub-prompts
The fidelity-adaptation tension shapes everything that follows. Naming what's fixed and what flexes is the start of a real scaling plan. Section 4.1 of the Companion develops this further with the FRAME framework for documenting adaptations.
Sub-prompts
Reach that doesn't reach those most affected isn't the scaling that was intended. This is where moral justification re-enters: who benefits, and who is left out by design or by drift.
Three pathways, ordered by the level of control the originating organisation retains.
Treat this as a planning frame, not a fixed taxonomy. Most organisations mix pathways and move between them as the innovation matures. The choice has direct implications for the business model: mismatched models are one of the more common ways scaling fails. Click a pathway for the deeper view.
Examples include advocacy, training, publishing, consulting
Often fits when the core is a principle or method. Lower fidelity cost, wider potential reach. Funded through grants, speaking, training income.
Examples include licensing, franchising, kite-marks, contracts
Often fits when a codified model exists for others to deliver. Tighter fidelity, with the fixed cost of producing and supporting the package. Funded through licensing or subscription income.
Examples include alliances, mergers, branching, in-house growth
Often fits when control is essential and capacity exists or can be built. Highest control, highest resource demand, longest timeline. Funded through contracts and service delivery.
Spreads a principle, method, or set of insights through advocacy, publishing, training, and consulting. The originator doesn't deliver the work at scale; others adopt and adapt.
Codifies the innovation into a package others can deliver. Holds tighter fidelity than Influence & Advise, but at the cost of producing and supporting the package.
The originating organisation keeps delivery in-house, growing capacity or partnering deeply enough to shape how delivery happens. Highest control, highest resource demand.
Eleven components. A hybrid of the Business Model Canvas and a Theory of Change.
Front of house on the left (what beneficiaries experience). Back of house on the right (what supports delivery). External influences across the top. The learning system across the bottom, touching every other component. Click any box for its description, or run the walkthrough to step through the eleven components in order.
Seven components for regular review of an innovation at scale.
A prompt for honest conversation, not a compliance check. Designed to be used quarterly or six-monthly, by the people who actually deliver. Drift is the default; this is what holds it. Click any component for the question and what it draws on.
The question. Is the innovation still producing the intended outcomes at scale?
What it draws on. The O-DEAR Effectiveness question, re-asked at scale. Outcomes can drift even when delivery looks the same on paper, so the check is whether the effects that justified scaling in the first place are still showing up.
The question. Is the causal mechanism still operating as intended?
What it draws on. Maps to the Scaling Canvas Mechanism (component 03). Short-term outcomes can look fine while the mechanism quietly drifts. That's where fidelity erodes.
The question. How is the innovation actually being delivered at each scaled site? What's been adapted, and why?
What it draws on. Maps to the Scaling Canvas Delivery context (04) and Delivery model (05). Adaptations are normal; undocumented adaptations are the problem.
The question. Is the originating organisation's capacity keeping pace? Governance, data systems, HR, training infrastructure.
What it draws on. Maps to Scaling Canvas component 08. The implementation drivers under the originating organisation's control.
The question. Are system-level conditions still supporting scaled delivery? Funding, regulation, workforce supply, community infrastructure.
What it draws on. Maps to Scaling Canvas component 09. These conditions sit largely outside the originator's control but can be influenced over time.
The question. Is the learning system generating feedback that's actually being used to adapt the innovation?
What it draws on. Maps to Scaling Canvas component 10. Feedback that goes nowhere is paperwork. The check is whether learning loops actually close.
The question. What broader forces are affecting the scaling effort? Political, economic, cultural, demographic.
What it draws on. Maps to Scaling Canvas component 11. Sometimes the most important shift isn't inside the innovation; it's the conditions around it.
The Toolkit collects four print-ready canvases with instructions, designed for desk use or scaled up to A3 for workshops. The Companion expands on each tool: the research and case studies behind it, why the questions are framed the way they are, and how the four tools fit together across the lifecycle of a scaling effort.
Last updated: January 2025
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