This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at evalacademy.com. I’ve had many experiences collaborating with other evaluators, colleagues, or program managers starting a new evaluation. Questions fly like “Which evaluation framework will we use?”, “What will our approach be?”, “What is the evaluation plan?”. And often, down in the weeds, we question […]
3 Easy Ways to Quantify Your Qualitative Data
This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at evalacademy.com. You’ve completed your qualitative data collection and you’re writing up your report. You step back and look at All. The. Text. If only you had some quantitative data to include in a chart, or some numbers to report! We’ve previously written about how […]
Canva Accessibility is bad, here is how you fix your design.
This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at freshspectrum.com. As much as I love Canva, there is definitely one spot where the tool absolutely fails. And that spot is accessibility. When you work with a lot of government clients the topic of accessibility is almost always at the top of the considerations […]
Leading through Transformation
This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at medium.com/innovationnetwork. Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash As I transition out of my role as Director of Innovation Network, I’ve been in deep reflection about how the last 20 years shaped and sharpened my own approaches to learning and evaluation, as well as those of […]
Practical Attractors
This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at cense.ca. Attractor mapping is a method we’ve written about before. It’s a visual means of tracking where we pay attention and where energy is created, sustained and organized. Energy is represented through attention, action, activity, and interactions. Energy is dissipative and it’s dynamic. This […]
Evaluation Comics
This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at freshspectrum.com. Big news! I have an evaluation comics page now. So what does that actually mean? Click here to visit the new page. Over the last decade my comics used to live almost entirely within blog posts. For most of my cartooning life I’ve […]
10 Subtle Signs of “Death by PowerPoint”
This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at depictdatastudio.com. Death by PowerPoint makes our audience scroll through their phone or lose interest. Important information sits on the slide, gathering dust. We’re all familiar with the obvious signs of Death by PowerPoint: Text-wall slides with bullet points for daaaays. Using filler words (um, […]
Webinar Notes: Using Evaluation in Context: Multicultural Validity and Cultural Competence in Evaluation
This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at drbethsnow.com. Date: 14 April 2022 Hosted by: AEA, Government Accountability Office Speakers: Karen Kirkhart, Kathryn Newcomer, Giovanni Dazzo, Nicole Bowman, Terell Lasane (moderator) This was a really great webinar. I furiously took notes of as many of the insightful things the panelists were talking […]
Better Report Design or Faster Report Design? Pen and Paper Activity
This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at freshspectrum.com. So what’s better, creating one great report or ten good reports? In an ideal world we would have ample time to plan, write, develop, illustrate, test, and iterate our evaluation reports. But that’s likely not the professional world you occupy (and it’s certainly […]
Criteria Based Ranking in Developmental Evaluation
This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at evalacademy.com. Developmental Evaluation is widely implemented and the preferred option for programs that address complex problems such as poverty and homelessness. There is a growing body of literature on Developmental Evaluation (DE) and more and more evaluators are embracing this approach (myself included!). For […]