To develop the 2027 Plan, Infrastructure Australia used the theory of change approach to identify:
• the pathway to achieving outcomes for service users and community sustainability
• interdependencies between the actions required to deliver these outcomes.
An outcomes-focused approach helps to guide decision-making and coordinate alignment between change agents and Jurisdictions. It also identifies both a reform pathway and indicators for monitoring performance. This approach has set out a reform framework that can be tested, challenged and refined regularly to support the implementation of reforms and report on progress.
Theory of change describes how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It focuses on mapping (filling in) the 'missing middle' between what a change initiative does (its activities) and how these lead to the desired outcomes.
It identifies the long-term goals (ultimate outcomes), then works back from them to identify all the conditions (intermediate outcomes) that must be in place for the goals to be reached, including how they relate to each another.