MSC was originally designed as a monitoring tool, with regular (i.e. quarterly) cycles of collection, selection and feedback. This was a radical move from more traditional methods of monitoring which were largely focused on numbers. Therefore MSC is impact monitoring (a hybrid). MSC has been successfully used as a monitoring tool, indeed the originally organisation where it was implemented in Bangaldesh continues to use it in this way. As monitoring is an ‘internal’ process within an organisation, the story collection is generally done by project staff and selection initially happens in project teams (and later by senior management/national office). The benefits of a shorter cycle are that:

• it has greater potential to build capacity of staff
• provides more immediate information about impact
• encourages more regular reflection
• fosters ownership of M&E by staff

However, the resources and time required to implement MSC on such a regular basis mean that it may not be practical to maintain at this frequency.