Posts filed under ‘communicating evaluation results’
New resource Integrating Communications in Evaluation on Better Evaluation
I am happy to announce that my guidelines “Integrating communications in evaluation” is now available of the Better Evaluation website. If you haven’t visited Better Evaluation, I suggest you do; it’s full of useful resources and helpful advice.
Integrating communications in evaluation – presentation slides
Earlier this year I gave a presentation on “integrating communications in evaluation” and I am now happy to share the presentation slides of the event:
Event: Integrating communications in evaluation – 11h00 – 30 January 2020 ILO, Geneva
For those in Geneva region and interested in communications and evaluation – I will be making a presentation in January 2020, read more:
The Evaluation Office of the International Labour Organization invites you to a presentation by Glenn O’Neil
. The topic of Dr O’Neil’s presentation will be Integrating communications in evaluation.
Communications is an important aspect of evaluation; it has been said that without communications, evaluation would not be possible.
Evaluation commissioners and evaluators are already communicating – but is communications being used optimally to support the evaluation process? In this presentation, Dr O’Neil will challenge the assumptions of how communications “works” for evaluations and propose solutions based on his experience as both a communicator and evaluator, backed up by communication practice and theory.
Dr O’Neil is founder of Owl RE, evaluation and research consultancy, Geneva. Since 15 years, he has led over 100 evaluations and reviews for some 40 organizations, including UN agencies, NGOs, foundations and governments. Dr O’Neil was previously a professional communicator in the non-profit sector and has produced his own guide on Integrating Communications in the Evaluation Process (pdf).
The event will take place from 11:00-12:00 on Thursday 30 January in the ILO Library on R2 (main floor). After the presentation, there will be a networking lunch (at your own expense) in the ILO cafeteria.
No need to register – please come to the ILO reception at 10:50 and ask for Craig Russon of the ILO Evaluation Office.
A Guide: Integrating Communication in Evaluation
I’ve put together this guide for anyone who wants to learn how communication can more effectively support evaluation: evaluation consultants, communication consultants, evaluation commissioners and programme/project staff participating in evaluations.
Using infographics to present evaluation findings
I’ve written previously about using infographics to summarise evaluation findings; here is another recent example of where my evaluation team used an infographic to present the findings of an evaluation – it’s only a partial view – you can see the complete infographic on page 5 of this report (pdf).
Networking mapping as an evaluation tool
I’ve posted previously about network mapping as an evaluation tool and recently I had the opportunity to use network mapping for an evaluation.
In an evaluation of the Shifting the Power project we were interested to see how local networks of NGOs had grown over the three years of the project. We were lucky that the project had carried out a mapping of NGO networks at the start of the project in 2015 and we then did the same in early 2018; here you can see the results comparing 2015 to 2018 from Bangladesh – interesting data!
You can view the full evaluation report here (pdf)>>
Infographics to present evaluation findings
I’ve posted previously about using infographics to summarise evaluation findings; here is a recent example of using an infographic to present research results (click on the image to see larger and complete version); admittedly we packed a lot into this infographic – but still a good summary!
Using Sankey diagrams for data presentation
I’ve always found the Sankey diagram an illustrative way to show transfers from inputs to outputs but have never found a use for them in my own work until now…
The following Sankey diagram shows research reports on crises on the left and the number of challenges identified (for humanitarian surge response) per crisis. The right shows the categories used to group the challenges (“Resource gaps, Policies and systems”, etc). This provides a visual overview of the challenges identified and their volume by crisis and type of challenge.
I produced this diagram using a free online tool. If interested in the research reports, they can be found here.
Use and value of evaluations
What is the value and use of evaluations is a commonly asked question from many funding or commissioning evaluations. So of interest is that the Hewlett Foundation has just carried out an interesting study on the use and value of the evaluations they carry out. Some of their key findings were:
- Evaluation quality has improved over time
- Spending on evaluation has nearly doubled
- Higher-quality evaluations cost more
- Evaluations are being shared more than in the past, but there’s room to improve
- Evaluations are valuable and used in multiple ways
On this last finding, they provide the following breakdown on evaluation use- interesting to see that only 3% of evaluations had “no use” – good news for evaluation!
Read more about the study here>>
Together with the Centre for Evaluation Innovation, the Hewlett Foundation is holding a free webinar on the study – April 19, 2018 2:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada) – Register here>>
New ILO guidelines for evaluation
The International Labour Office (ILO) has released their new guidelines for evaluation (pdf). Although the guidelines are specific to the ILO, the guidelines contain many useful chapters for evaluators and evaluation commissioners in general, for example on the steps for planning and managing and evaluation and communicating the results. View the guidelines here (pdf)>>
intelligent measurement 