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This webpage from Tamarack Community provides links to audio files of an interview between Mark Cabaj and Michael Patton in which they discuss the topic of development evaluation. This is an "approach that has proven particularly useful and effective at addressing the unique challenges of evaluating the real nature of community change work. Learning Objectives: To deepen appreciation for the role of evaluation and evaluation thinking To explore the distinctions between various types of...

Outcome Harvesting was developed by Ricardo Wilson-Grau with colleagues Barbara Klugman, Claudia Fontes, David Wilson-Sánchez, Fe Briones Garcia, Gabriela Sánchez, Goele Scheers, Heather Britt, Jennifer Vincent, Julie Lafreniere, Juliette Majot, Marcie Mersky, Martha Nuñez, Mary Jane Real, Natalia Ortiz, and Wolfgang Richert. Over the past 8 years, Outcome Harvesting and has been used to monitor and evaluate the achievements of hundreds of networks, non-governmental organizations, research...

Based on Michael Quinn Patton's best-selling Utilization-Focused Evaluation, this briefer book provides an overall framework and essential checklist steps for designing and conducting evaluations that actually get used. The new material and innovative graphics present the utilization-focused evaluation process as a complex adaptive system, incorporating current understandings about systems thinking and complexity concepts. The book integrates theory and practice, is based on both research...

Background Improving the design and implementation of evidence-based practice depends on successful behaviour change interventions. This requires an appropriate method for characterising interventions and linking them to an analysis of the targeted behaviour. There exists a plethora of frameworks of behaviour change interventions, but it is not clear how well they serve this purpose. This paper evaluates these frameworks, and develops and evaluates a new framework aimed at overcoming their...

The method was developed by Robert Brinkerhoff as an alternative (or supplement) to the Kirkpatrick approach and its derivatives. It is very simple and fast (which is part of it’s appeal) and goes something like this: Step 1. Identify targeted business goals and impact expectations Step 2. Survey a large representative sample of all participants in a program to identify high impact and low impact cases Step 3. Analyze the survey data to identify: a small group of successful...

Between good intentions and great results lies a program theory—not just a list of tasks but a vision of what needs to happen, and how. Now widely used in government and not-for-profit organizations, program theory provides a coherent picture of how change occurs and how to improve performance. Purposeful Program Theory shows how to develop, represent, and use program theory thoughtfully and strategically to suit your particular situation, drawing on the fifty-year history of program theory...

The concept of resilience has been used among a diversity of fields with a myriad of definitions. A systems approach to discovering the essence of resilience could aid in understanding its concept and provide opportunities to distinguish its systemic characteristics that can be identified, planned, or analyzed regardless of the field in which it is considered. In order to begin executing such an approach, a comprehensive study of the literature on the topic and circumstances in which...

The principal changes to the logframe from the earlier (2008) 4 x 4 matrix are: - Objectively Verifiable Indicators (OVIs) have been separated into their component elements (Indicator, Baseline and Target), and Milestones added. - Means of Verification has been renamed ‘Source’. - Inputs are now quantified in terms of funds (expressed in Sterling for DFID and all partners) and use of DFID staff time (expressed as annual Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs). - A DFID Share box now indicates the...

NGO-IDEAs (NGO – Impact on Development, Empowerment and Actions) NGO-IDEAs is a cooperation of about 40 non-govermental organisations (NGOs) from South Asia, East Africa and the Philippines and 14 German NGOs working in the field of development cooperation. It identifies and develops jointly with all partners, concepts and tools for NGOs in the areas of Outcome and Impact Assessment and Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E). NGO-IDEAs is further being supported by VENRO, the umbrella organisation of...

In my brief experience with monitoring and evaluation, I have become convinced that it is critically important both as an international development project component and as a field of academic study. Throughout my academic career at Cornell University, I have, at times, argued that monitoring and evaluation has actually impeded development efforts, but here I wish to amend my opinion. Bad monitoring and evaluation can sabotage development projects and our meaningful interpretation of...

This document is made up of a range of Evaluation Working Papers (EWP) focused on evaluation for equitable development. Put together by evaluation specialists they present strategic evaluation findings, lessons learned and innovative approaches and methodologies. Part 1:Evaluation and equity Evaluation to accelerate progress towards equity, social justice and human rights 2 Human rights and gender equality in evaluation 13 When human rights is the starting point for evaluation...

This working paper is a methodological contribution to the emerging debate on monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in the context of climate change adaptationand disaster risk reduction. Effectively managing disaster risk is critical for adapting to the impacts of climate change, however disasters risk reduction M&E practice may be limited in capturing progress towards adaptation. The unique nature of adaptation to climate change calls for experience-based learning M&E processes for discovering...

In 2007, on the eve of a workshop to introduce a new version of the RAPID approach to DFID policy teams, Enrique Mendizabal and Ben Ramalingam created the Alignment, Interest and Influence Matrix (AIIM), a stakeholder analysis tool that not only helps to identify key stakeholders, but also suggests a possible course of action towards them.

This presentation from the Strengthening ICTD Research Capacity in Asia (SIRCA) provides an overview of how UFE was used in their SIRCA programme. It was presented at the Evaluation Conclave 2010, New Delhi, India The key objectives of the program are to: Enhance research capacity in Asia through rigorous academic research Create a space for dialogue on ICT4D social science research issues in Asia Create linkages through a mentorship program Disseminate findings in publications and...

The focus of this book is on how experts adapt to complexity, synthesize and interpret information in context, and transform or "fuse" disparate items of information into coherent knowledge. The chapters examine these processes across experts (e.g. global leaders, individuals in extreme environments, managers, police officers, pilots, commanders, doctors, inventors), across contexts (e.g. space and space analogs, corporate organizations, command and control, crisis and crowd management, air...

Developmental evaluation (DE) offers a powerful approach to monitoring and supporting social innovations by working in partnership with program decision makers. In this book, eminent authority Michael Quinn Patton shows how to conduct evaluations within a DE framework. Patton draws on insights about complex dynamic systems, uncertainty, nonlinearity, and emergence. He illustrates how DE can be used for a range of purposes: ongoing program development, adapting effective principles of...

The concept of the case is a basic feature of social science research and yet many questions about how a case should be defined, selected, and judged are far from settled. The contributors to this volume probe the nature of the case and the ways in which different understandings of the concept affect the conduct and the results of research. The contributions demonstrate that the work of any given researcher is often characterised by some hybrid of these basic approaches, and it is important...