August 2009 Archives

1. Ensure your evaluations are in line with the organizational vision and strategy
2. Work with evaluators in the strategic planning process
3. Respect confidentiality in the evaluation process
4. Be 100% ethical 100% of the time
5. The tone of the organization often determines success in the evaluation process
6. Be open to new suggestions to old problems
7. Evaluation helps you understand what worked, why it worked, and what it means for your organization
8. Always clarify intellectual property rights BEFORE the project begins

1. Evaluation is about continually building knowledge to help propel your organization forward


2. Get to know the evaluator you choose to work with, and allow him or her to get to know you - before, during, and after the project


3. Get to know your own evaluation lingo.


4. Change comes one step at a time - understand how evaluation results fit into the big picture.


5. Evaluation helps you learn new information about how your program is doing.


6. Talk to an evaluator about evaluation issues. You wouldn't go to Home Depot to talk to someone about a health problem, so why not go straight to the evaluation source to address your evaluation needs?


7. Like management or business consultants, evaluation consultants are not performance bonded.


8. Spend time talking and associating with people at all levels of your organization. You will likely gain much information and perspective on your programs and goals. You will also be able to evaluate those things more productively.

Over the last decade, and more recently with the economic roller coaster we've been on, organizations are becoming more self-sufficient. We're seeing this evidence via corporate downsizing, professional development, and a structure of learning taking place in companies worldwide.

Along with self-sufficiency in business strategy planning, marketing, manufacturing processes, and retail production and distribution should bring the evaluation of these aforementioned tasks. The development of an organization's capacity to plan, conduct, and use evaluation is crucial to not only the success of individual programs, processes, and tasks, but also the overall success of the organization as a whole. This applies to all disciplines (e.g., non-profits, NGOs, for-profits, education, government, military).

Although many definitions of evaluation capacity building (ECB) now circulate the globe, I believe the simplest working definition can be found in the writing of Stockdill, Baizerman, and Compton (2002), where they define ECB as, "the intentional work to continuously create and sustain overall organizational processes that make quality evaluation and its uses routine" (p. 14). Here evaluation becomes the norm rather than the exception. Evaluations themselves and the corresponding structure become transparent within the organization. All hierarchical levels in the organization - from the clerical staff to the team leaders to the CEO - understand and capitalize on the importance of evaluation and how it affects business processes and the accompanying bottom line. Creating evaluation capacity with any type of organization involves not only evaluators, but also the organization itself. Both parties need to take a proactive mindset to create the organizational structure needed to support evaluation capacity.

As an organizational leader, think of evaluation capacity building as creating evaluation self-sufficiency within your organization. You not only need to see the importance of
evaluation in the short and long term, but also develop the skills to conduct evaluations and use the results of such to further your business vision.

A good place to start is to think about the topics listed in A Checklist for Building Organizational Capacity (Volkov and King, 2007) made available through The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University. Discuss these principles with your colleagues and how you can implement them in your daily practice. There are many resources available to assist you, such as evaluation consultants, professional development opportunities, etc.

The first step is to understand how becoming self-sufficient in evaluation can improve your organizational mission, vision statements, goals, and ultimately the bottom line. Then take additional steps to see that goal become a reality.

1. Evaluation can help you promote your organization
2. Don't presume you know how your stakeholders feel about your product, process, or service - EVALUATE
3. The lowest bidder is not always the best one to evaluate your products - look for quality - you get what you pay for
4. Don't only take evaluation results at face value - look at the big picture
5. Always keep in mind the intended and unintended outcomes of a project
6. Needs analyses help you get a baseline snapshot of the program before you evaluate it
7. Seek to help, not to please
8. Be willing to give the evaluator feedback on how the evaluation process went - good evaluators evaluate themselves, too

• You launch a new website for your organization. How do you know if anyone has seen it, is using the information on it, or if it's effective in gaining new customers?
• You develop a new employee-training program to be used at all your area offices. How do you know if employee performance has improved because of that program, or what employees think of the program?
• You received state funding for your community literacy program. How will you know if the program achieved its goals? How will you account for the program effectiveness to the funders?

The answer to all three of these scenarios is that you don't know unless you evaluate the progress or impact of those programs.

Evaluation judges the merit or worth of something, whether that something is a program, product, process, performance, or policy. Evaluation helps you determine its impact on your organization, the community, and the people involved. Evaluation can guide your strategic planning. Evaluation can save you time and money.

As an organizational leader, consider the following questions:

1. In these tough economic times, how can I determine which programs work and which I should consider down-scaling or canceling?



2. How do my organization's activities coincide with short, medium, and long-term goals?



3. How can I get greater return on investment for the quantity and quality of work that goes into this organization?



4. How can I ensure my programs are cost effective?

These questions are just the first step in helping your organization become more effective. To answer these questions, you can seek out information on how to plan, conduct, and analyze evaluations. You can work with an external evaluator, or learn how to develop your organization's capacity for conducting internal evaluations.

Evaluation equals understanding and decision-making power.

1. Be willing to take part in the evaluation process - evaluation is not a spectator sport
2. Return on Investment is more than just numbers
3. Always ask, "So what?" - understand how evaluation results relate to you and your organization
4. Evaluate your business continuity plan from time to time
5. Evaluation can help you be a trend-setter
6. Evaluators take on many roles during the evaluation process
7. Ensure you are clear about the evaluation process BEFORE you begin - you'll save time and money
8. Evaluation brings change