2 Comments

What does capacity building look like on a day-to-day basis? « Adventures of an Internal Evaluator says:

April 5, 2012 at 3:38 pm

[…] Sometimes the direct service staff get really into evaluation and want to dive into the numbers more deeply. I LOVE WHEN THIS HAPPENS. For me, it’s one indicator of our learning culture. […]

My ongoing list of indicators of an organizational learning culture… « Adventures of an Internal Evaluator says:

April 5, 2012 at 4:37 pm

[…] Staff members take an initiative to monitor data without nudging from evaluators […]

How Do You Know the Evaluation is Working?

Ann K. Emery

Updated on: Apr 3rd, 2012

Data Visualization

Program Evaluation

Collage of clipboard, clock, people, calendar and calculator.

Evaluators are funny people. We like to evaluate everything, from programs, to ourselves, to our own evaluations.

I often ask myself, “How do I know my evaluation is working?” As an internal evaluator in a DC youth center, one of my tasks is to create an organizational culture of learning and reflection. So how would I evaluate my own process? How could I measure this learning culture?

Here’s one indicator:

This social worker found a bug in our database that was making one field of data, the gender field, not show up in the automated reports we’d created for him. He sent his own screensheet, added the arrows himself, and blocked out the client’s name to protect confidentiality.

Most importantly, he was using data to track his clients’ progress on his own and without nudging from evaluators, he was double-checking the report’s results against the data he’d entered, he was comfortable navigating our complex database, and he could use terms like “data field” to explain the issue to my teammate and I.

I feel like a proud mama bear every time this happens. 🙂

More about Ann K. Emery
Ann K. Emery is a sought-after speaker who is determined to get your data out of spreadsheets and into stakeholders’ hands. Each year, she leads more than 100 workshops, webinars, and keynotes for thousands of people around the globe. Her design consultancy also overhauls graphs, publications, and slideshows with the goal of making technical information easier to understand for non-technical audiences.