Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

The importance of visible, high level commitment to evaluation

One of the favorite stories I tell about evaluation is about going to meet a senior manager to discuss evaluation and finding him standing on a table in the middle of an open-plan office, with the staff gathered around him, as he stretched up to his full 6 foot 5 inch height , thumped one

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Friday Funny - responding to feedback

For evaluation to have positive impacts, individuals and organizations need to respond appropriately to evaluative information, such as client feedback. We can learn a lot from that master of customer-focused service, Basil Fawlty, whose approach might be a useful training film.

How to access video of the webinar on future trends in evaluation

The July 1 webinar we mentioned yesterday can be accessed via the webinars section of the new My M and E website (www.mymande.org).

Michael Quinn Patton,Founder and Director, Utilization-focused evaluation, and former President of the American Evaluation Association, spoke on future trends in evaluation.

Marco Segone, Senior evaluation specialist, Systemic management, UNICEF Evaluation Office, and former Vice

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The Friday Funny: The Government Contracting Glossary

While we are on the theme of glossaries and interpretation guides, such as the earlier ones for Management Speak and language used in scientific papers, we thought this was a useful addition for evaluators who work on government contracts, and for government commissioners of evaluation contracts

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Friday Funny - 'don't get genuine with me' and other Urban Dictionary gems

A constant theme in this blog is exploring the many dimensions of what it means to do genuine evaluation. This week we have some inspiration from the contributions to Urban

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9 golden rules for commissioning a waste-of-money evaluation

There may well be some managers out there who have yet to experience the thrill of commissioning a total waste-of-money evaluation. Well, thankfully, your colleagues around the world have been working diligently on building a knowledge base just for you!

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How to spot a 'lip service' approach to culturally responsive evaluation

So you’ve put out an RFP for an evaluation of a policy, program or initiative intended to serve and effect positive change in a “minority” community. All the proposals look terribly impressive, and they all include “cultural experts” on the evaluation team. How can you distinguish the proposals that show a clear understanding of what it takes to do effective and culturally responsive evaluations from those that merely pay ‘lip service’ to cultural competence?

Read the whole post –> How to spot a ‘lip service’ approach to culturally responsive evaluation (a checklist for evaluation commissioners)

Evaluation revisited - conference this week on complexity and evaluation

If you can’t be in the Netherlands this week for the conference on complexity and evaluation, you can follow it through the conference blog

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The Friday Funny - The Hollowmen

This week we are revisting a classic moment in Australian comedy which seems strangely relevant to this week’s

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Two alternative Copernican revolutions for evaluation

Michael Scriven, during his time as our guest blogger, suggested it was time for a Copernican revolution in evaluation. Now that I have returned from three weeks on the road, I’d like to suggest two different revolutions that might be needed. In both cases I am taking literally the notion of what is considered the center around which the other elements

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