Tag Archives: government

The Friday Funny: Focusing on the important things in planning major initiatives

Evaluation is not just something we do at the end of a program, nor only impact evaluation. Some forms of evaluation are needed at the beginning of new interventions to inform the planning – evaluations in the form of needs … Continue reading

Posted in Friday Funnies, Strategic policy evaluation | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Managing genuine evaluation paradoxes: Genuine reporting

In reponse to the earlier post on genuine evaluation snippets from around the globe, Irene Guijt raised a very important question about the tensions between several hallmarks of genuine evaluation: Some important contrasts presented but also one that doesn’t entirely … Continue reading

Posted in About/Definition, Appropriate reporting, Government programs | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

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 … Continue reading

Posted in Friday Funnies, The client's role | Tagged , | Leave a comment

£6 million over 5 years – and STILL no genuine evaluation of Blueprint?

When a large and expensive evaluation fails to produce useful results, it’s worth seeing if at least it can be useful as a cautionary tale. Blueprint is a UK Government-funded drugs education programme consisting of five components: drug education in … Continue reading

Posted in Adequate scope, Causal inference, Causal inference strategies, Education, Evaluation team composition, Evaluative questions & answers, Government programs, Learning from failure, The client's role | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Culture – insiders’ and outsiders’ insights – and genuine evaluation

One great area of interest for me is the study of organizational culture and organizational culture change. I’d like to present a few ideas from that area and see how they apply to the concept of culture more generally. And, how these insights might be able to drive us closer to genuine evaluation. What mix of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ can provide rich insights into what really matters and help surface important undiscussables? Continue reading

Posted in Community programs, Cultural context, Government programs, The client's role, Values-based | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments