How Can I Use the Organon?

The Organon has a variety of uses:  

Basic orientation and education: The Organon can be used by anyone interested in a basic introduction to the key components and principles of resilience-based planning and action. Under "Explore the Steps," click on any bubble to see a general explanation for that step; within a step, click on "Ecosystem Examples" to see how four ecosystem studies that were used to develop the Organon inspired that step.  

Program evaluation: Program managers can use the Organon as a programmatic organizing framework to help brainstorm improved adaptation of existing work, review what work is already occurring or still needed, and examine how internal work links together across steps.  

Project planning: Project practitioners can use the Organon as a logic model with a working group of subject matter experts to guide a detailed, systematic design process across all steps to achieve a particular project goal.  

The Organon is not meant to be rigid or prescriptive; instead, it is intended to be adaptive to project needs as identified through "embracing collaboration" processes. If a project is already underway, it can be used at any step to assess the status of that step and its relationship to other steps in whatever order works best. The step contents are also meant to be interpreted flexibly; only certain elements of a step may apply in some cases. For instance, in Step 2 a single site may already have been identified for a project through an earlier process, such that a prioritization exercise is not necessary; however, site evaluation would still be needed to understand local vulnerabilities before site-specific interventions could be appropriately selected and designed.  

These and other examples of flexible interpretations and uses of the Organon can be explored in the "Ecosystem Examples" and "Partner Projects" sections.