Evaluation and strategic learning
Evaluation FOR learning
For many folks, evaluation is synonymous with measurement—it’s seen as a dry, technical exercise. As I see it, evaluation is first and foremost a habit of inquiry that can help organizations to make sense of their own intervention and of the complex environment they are operating within.
Fundamentally, evaluation is a management function that can help organizations to better accomplish their mission – acting like an antenna that captures and unscrambles important feedback signals relating to their programs and activities.
“Nancy's approach is well-grounded in best practices: she developed a series of practical evaluation tools, trained our staff to implement them, and ensured that we are accurately assessing the impact of our program. Through her thoughtful and engaging approach, she helped our staff to understand complex concepts in program analysis.”
— Program manager, environmental sustainability NGO
Evaluation and strategic learning for networks, community change and advocacy initiatives
There is no one-size-fits-all way to approach and undertake evaluation. Rather, it’s important to find the right approach for each type of initiative or program. Networks, collaboratives, community change and policy advocacy work all have certain features in common:
They can have multiple moving parts and simultaneously focus on different targets;
The pathways to the long-term changes sought are unpredictable, and are influenced by many factors beyond the control of the initiative;
As the context and the constellations of players are constantly changing, the goalposts move along with them.
When I work with these types of complex initiatives, I seek to:
facilitate flexible and adaptive planning that creates a compass rather than a roadmap, and that uses real-time feedback to make adjustments along the way;
Assess contribution to results rather than attribution;
Work with stakeholders to capture the knowledge that is distributed throughout the action system;
Engage end users and other key stakeholders in sensemaking;
Recognize the value of evaluation and learning at different points in the process. Different areas of focus will matter to different sets of actors at different points in time - for instance, assessing capacity development or the achievement of interim progress markers.