Systems MEL Guiding Principles
Why Principles Matter
Adopting Systems MEL can feel overwhelming at first. To help guide your journey, this guidance offers three principles that provide a clear frame of reference as you get started.
Whether you're new to Systems MEL or already experimenting with its approaches, these principles are intentionally flexible—relevant across a wide range of interventions, contexts, and challenges.
They allow you to begin without needing all the answers. They help you apply Systems MEL not as a checklist of tools, but as a way of seeing, learning, and acting in a complex world.
01
Principle 1: Let Learning Lead
Principle 1: Let Learning Lead
In Systems MEL, learning is not a side activity—it’s the core driver of action, strategy, and change.
Systems MEL takes a learning stance, recognizing that in complex systems:
We can’t know everything in advance.
Conditions can shift rapidly.
Change is often unpredictable.
Rather than aiming for control or certainty, Systems MEL embraces experimentation, feedback, and reflection as essential tools for navigating complexity.
This means:
Make learning central, not a side activity or compliance task.
Link learning and action, using each to inform and improve the other.
Embrace experimentation and uncertainty, treating them as necessary conditions for learning and adaptation.
Use real-time insights to challenge assumptions, shift strategies, and evolve your role in the system.
02
Principle 2: Act Within the Whole
Principle 2: Act within the whole
In Systems MEL, we shift from seeing projects as isolated efforts to viewing ourselves as one actor within a complex, interconnected, dynamic system.
Systems MEL equips us to widen our lens to:
See the systems and our relationship to them.
Understand the deeper patterns, relationships, and power structures shaping the challenges we work on.
Recognize that we are part of the system we seek to change and therefore part of the problem and a space for change.
Rather than focusing only on whether an intervention is achieving its intended outcomes, Systems MEL asks: What’s really going on in this system? How are we shaping it—and how is it shaping us? This systems-centric stance brings humility, curiosity, and a long-term commitment to learning and change.
This means:
See challenges and solutions systemically, through multiple perspectives, focusing on deeper patterns, root causes, and the interconnections that sustain them.
Embrace complexity and emergence, recognizing that change is nonlinear, unpredictable, and experienced differently across the system by different actors.
Engage diverse viewpoints, turning inward to examine your role and assumptions, and outward to surface blind spots, expand understanding, and challenge dominant narratives.
Be power-aware when engaging with your intervention, contributing to long-term collective sensemaking and confronting the power dynamics that shape and sustain the system.
03
Principle 3: Start Where You Are
Principle 3: Start Where You Are
In Systems MEL, there’s no single starting point and no fixed path.
You begin when and where it makes sense—based on your context, entry point, and capacity.
Rather than waiting for perfect conditions or a fully developed plan, Systems MEL invites you to step in, explore, and evolve your approach through practice.
This means:
Beginning from your current context—your entry point, capacities, constraints, and relationships.
Working with the system as it is, not as you wish it were.
Orienting around a long-term purpose, even if the path forward isn’t clear.
Drawing boundaries with intention—knowing what you’ll focus on and why.
Locating your role honestly: understanding where you have control, influence, and interest and how you might need to change.
Taking small, practical steps—testing, learning, and adjusting as you go.
04
Systems MEL Principles Checklist
Why use this checklist?
Working in complex systems means conditions shift, outcomes are unpredictable, and no single tool or plan will cover everything. This checklist helps you stay grounded in the three core Systems MEL principles—Let Learning Lead, Act Within the Whole, and Start Where You Are—so you can design, implement, and reflect in ways that stay relevant, adaptive, and meaningful.
How to use it:
This checklist is meant to be simple and practical. Use it:
At the start of a project to shape your MEL approach.
During implementation to check whether your actions are aligned with systems thinking.
As part of team reflection to pause, adapt, and move forward more intentionally.
Each question helps you quickly assess whether you're working in line with Systems MEL principles—just answer yes or no. There's no score—what matters is identifying areas to strengthen and acting on them. Use it regularly, share it with colleagues, and let it spark honest conversation and learning.
01
Have we identified 1–2 core learning questions that shape how we design and adapt our work?
02
Are we using learning insights during implementation—not just reporting them at the end?
03
Have we experimented with and adjusted our approach based on what we learned through the experiment?
04
Are we actively making space to reflect as a team or with partners to make sense of what's happening?
05
Have we mapped how our work connects with other actors, efforts, and dynamics in the wider system?
06
Have we included a variety of perspectives—especially the perspectives of those most affected—in our MEL work?
07
Have we identified and considered power dynamics, including our own influence, in how we act and learn?
08
Are we noticing and documenting unexpected outcomes—not just intended results?
09
Are we building our MEL approach based on current resources, relationships, and constraints—not waiting for ideal conditions?
10
Have we made any changes to our role, assumptions, or focus based on what we’ve learned so far?
Linked Content
Systems MEL Principles Checklist
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