intelligent measurement

Presenting monitoring & evaluation results

January 8, 2007 at 9:27 pm 2 comments

The more I work in the M&E field, the more I see the importance of presenting results in a consumable way. If you are leading an evaluation project, there is nothing more frustrating than finishing your project and finding the comprehensive report you wrote gathering dust on a manager’s desk.

But that’s what I have learnt, the comprehensive report will perhaps only be read by one or two people of the commissioning team – but the powerpoint summarising the report will be widely distributed and viewed by many. We may think this is a “dumbing-down” of the work undertaken but it is a reality of how our work is consumed. Here are some points on presenting results that I find useful:

• Think carefully about the data and findings you want to present. We can often be overwhelmed by data (from survey results for example). If in doubt, put data you consider important but not essential in report annexes.
• Make the evaluation report attractive and easy to ready – facilitate this by summarising the main points and creating a brief presentation.
• Organise an event such as a staff or team meeting to discuss the results – this could have more impact than the written document.
• Through blogs and wikis, use the evaluation results to generate more discussion and interest in the given subject. A good example is the blog created to present the results of the 2006 Euroblog survey.

Jim Macnamara in a recent article (pdf) touches on this subject on how presenting results with a “two-tier” approach is useful – that is, presenting to top management only key data and information while fully digesting all data at the corporate communications level.

Glenn

Cartoon from toothpaste for dinner>>

Entry filed under: Evaluation reporting, Evaluation use, PR evaluation, Training evaluation.