Evidence is central to effective and rigorous adaptive management. However, despite this central importance, exactly how evidence has been used to inform decisions for adapting development and humanitarian programmes in the past remains unobservable to many. • There is a need to strengthen and document evidence-informed adaptive management. This working paper proposes a roadmap to do this. • Those seeking to use evidence for adaptive management will need to manage trade-offs between ensuring a rigorous, documented (and auditable) trail of evidence-informed actions, being pragmatic about the time and resources allocated to documentation and recognising that it may be necessary to proceed without rigorous evidence when it is unavailable.