10 tips for delivering negative evaluation results
From the Better Evaluation Blog, a very useful post on how to deliver negative evaluation results – that they have summarised in ten tips:
1. Use a participatory approach from the start
2. Discuss possible negative results in the early contracting and design stages
3. Inform clients immediately and often – a ‘no surprises’ approach
4. Build in time for course correction
5. Question the evaluation plan
6. Emphasize the positives
7. Tell the truth
8. Present results in terms of lessons learned
9. Provide suggestions for addressing deficiencies
10. Involve stakeholders in identifying obstacles and ways to overcome them
Surveys for communicators
Increasingly communicators need the ability to evaluate their activities – being able to design and set-up online surveys is a key tool for communicators for soliciting feedback and interacting with audiences. Here are the slides from a practical workshop that I conducted last Friday for the Geneva Communicators Network and covers surveys for communicators from concept to analysis – hope it’s of use!
2 day Course in Most Significant Change Technique, London, June 10-11, 2013
For those who are looking for insights into a participatory M&E method, this may be of interest:
A two day course on the Most Significant Change (MSC) technique – a participatory monitoring & evaluation technique ideally suited to providing qualitative information on project /programme impact.The course offers several practical exercises and provides insights into other real world examples of MSC use.
Date: June 10-11, 2013
Venue: London, NCVO National Council for Voluntary Organisations
Society Building, 8 All Saints Street, London (near Kings Cross
Presenters: Theo Nabben with secondary input from Rick Davies
Costs: £ 450 per person for 2 days inclusive of meals. Please note: no scholarships are available.
Accommodation and transport are participants own responsibility. Course notes and electronic files will be provided. 10% discount to members of German and UK evaluation societies.
For course information details contact Theo at theo@socialimpactconsulting.com.au or through their website>>
Evaluating Government Communication Activity
The UK Government Communication Network have produced a new publication: “Evaluating Government Communication Activity – standards and guidance” (pdf).
The publication sums up well an approach for government departments (and also applicable to others) to evaluating communication activities. The annex on Recommended Metrics provides some interesting indicators for measuring communication activities – for government and other sectors.
Communicating Evaluation Findings: Advice from the Field
An interesting post on the Learning Portal for Design, Monitoring and Evaluation for Peacebuilding that focuses on communicating evaluation findings and brings forward three tips for those who hope to influence decisions with evaluation data:
- Answer the right questions;
- Speak their language;
- Be humble.
Insights into NGO advocacy evaluation
A group of leading NGOs have published a comparative study (pdf) on what they are doing in practice on advocacy evaluation. Participating NGOs are: ActionAid International, Amnesty International, Bread for the World, CARE USA , Greenpeace International, ONE, Oxfam and the Sierra Club.
Following is a summary from the study:
For organizations committed to social change, advocacy often figures as a crucial strategic element. How to assess effectiveness in advocacy is, therefore, important. The usefulness of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) in advocacy are subject to much current debate. Advocacy staff, MEL professionals, senior managers, the funding community, and stakeholders of all kinds are searching for ways to improve practices – and thus their odds of success – in complex and contested advocacy environments.
This study considers what a selection of leading advocacy organizations are doing in practice. We set out to identify existing practice and emergent trends in advocacy-related MEL practice, to explore current challenges and innovations. The study presents perceptions of how MEL contributes to advocacy effectiveness, and reviews the resources and structures dedicated to MEL.
Webinar – Presenting evaluation findings and evidence-based organizational learning
I’m happy to announce that next week – Friday April 26th – I’ll be participating in a webinar presented by SEA Change community of practice. Further details and link to registration:
This webinar titled “Presenting evaluation findings and evidence-based organizational learning” has been developed based on requests by SEA Change CoP members to learn more about presenting evaluation findings and the pre-requisites for their organization to better learn from evaluation findings.
Mr. Glenn O’Neil, evaluation expert and communications professional, will look at how to present evaluation finding with a focus on different messages for different stakeholders in order to improve the use of evaluation findings. After that he will discuss what it takes to become an evidence-based learning organization and give some guidance on how to improve evidence-based learning in your organization.
Join us for a Webinar on April 26 (14:00 ICT / 9:00 CET).
Eight short webinars on evaluation
The BetterEvaluation website is partnering with the American Evaluation Association to present a series of short webinars (20 minutes each) on evaluation in May 2013, subjects covered include:
- Define What Is To Be Evaluated
- Understand Causes of Outcomes and Impacts
- Synthesise Data from One or More Evaluations
- Report and Support Use of Findings
5th European Summit on Measurement announced
“Unlocking business performance- The role of communications research and analytics” is the theme of the 5th European Summit on Measurement of PR and communications – to be held in Madrid from 5 -7 June, 2013.
The Summit is presented by AMEC, the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication. The Summit will include workshop sessions, discussion groups and plenary speaking spots by international senior communications professionals.
The voices of affected populations in evaluation
The notion of listening to the voices of the affected populations is nothing new in humanitarian evaluation. However, in the past there has been a lot of talk with little action. The Listening Project is one of the first structured and global initiatives to look at this issue – not only from the evaluation perspective but more broadly – and have recently produced a summary study Time to Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid (pdf) based on discussions with almost 6,000 people in 20 countries. You can also read a news report about this issue on IRIN news.
As part of a stakeholder consultations I’ve been involved with for the Joint Standards Initiative, we’ve also been listening to affected populations – from Senegal to Pakistan to Mexico. The video below provides some short excerpts of interviews with affected populations, in addition to humanitarian workers from these consultations.
intelligent measurement 