3. identifying pits

3. Identifying PITs

Priority Information Themes for ACP Agriculture and Rural Development

This lesson will introduce you to one method for setting information priorities.

• What is the "priority grid" model?

• How can we go about selecting potential themes to use in this model?

• What might the results of a priority-setting process using the "priority grid" model look like?

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3. Identifying PITs


Dr. Carama welcomes participants back from their lunch break.

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Our "Mission Statement" will be a good place to begin our afternoon session. Here are the four main points that we included.

• The goal of MMRI research is to increase agricultural production.• The target group for MMRI information products/services is medium-size and small farmers.• MMRI wants to use a mixture of hardcopy, digital media, and the Internet to disseminate these products/services.• MMRI has to be cost-conscious.

3. Identifying PITs


He begins by noting that there are two different but complementary methods for setting priorities.

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Shema introduces the "Priority Grid Model"

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The first step will be to identify potential subjects. I am sure that each of us has ideas about the "priority themes" that we should consider.

I have asked Udako to pass out small cards, two to each person. On each card, please write ONE possible theme. An example might be the one that Dr. Carama mentioned earlier: "information on cultural practices".

After you have finished, we will stick each of these cards on the board in the front of the room. We should have 40 cards because there are 20 of us. We will then discuss these 40 and, together, we will try to aggregate them into not more than 5-7 groups.

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3. Identifying PITs


After a lively discussion, the group agrees on a list of seven potential PITs. Shema writes them on the board.

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3. Identifying PITs


She proposes that the group debate the pluses and minuses of each of the seven possible themes.

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Shema has prepared a large grid on the board in the front of the room. This grid contains each of the seven potential PITs arranged along both the horizontal and vertical axes.

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She continues.

We will now vote on these potential PITs with "shows of hands". I will ask you a series of questions like the following one.

• Which of the following two themes do you think is most important for MMRI: information on crop protection or information on cultural practices?

If your answer to this question is "crop protection", I will enter an "a" in the cell where these two potential themes intersect.

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3. Identifying PITs


Then I will ask you another question.

• Which of the following two themes do you think is most important for MMRI: information on cultural practices or information on farming systems?

If your answer to this question is "cultural practices", I will enter a "b" in the cell where these two potential themes intersect.

And so on.. After we have finished our votes, 21 of them, we will simply count the number of "a's" and the number of "b's" and the number of "c"s".

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3. Identifying PITs


Each vote takes only about one minute. "OK, here are our results."

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3. Identifying PITs


Here is a table showing these results. The "Frequency" column shows the number of times this proposed PIT was preferred in comparison to others. The "Percentage" column shows this number as a proportion of the total.

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Dr. Carama congratulates the group.

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3. Identifying PITs


In this lesson, we have covered four topics

• Review of group mission statement (Screens 2)• Introduction to the "Priority Grid Model“ (Screens 3-4)• Selection of potential PITs

(Screens 5-8)• Voting on PITs

(Screens 9-13)

Summary

3. identifying pits

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