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Evaluation Christmas Cartoons 2021 (my favorite is the elf one)

This is an Eval Central archive copy, find the original at freshspectrum.com.

Tis the season for holiday cartoons!

Some of my favorite cartoons over the past years were drawn to celebrate the holidays. Not sure if I have any big winners this year, but it’s still fun.

Here is this year’s batch, along with random commentary.

2020 2021 2022 Resolutions

I remember when the year started. Sure 2020 was a bust with COVID and all, but surely 2021 would be better…right?

So naive.

If you didn’t feel super productive or accomplished this past year, don’t worry. You are in good company with all the rest of us.

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. Illustration of a Resolutions list, with 2020 and 2021 crossed out, then showing 2022.

Elfing from Home

You know if Santa allowed remote work we would see more elves around. Wonder if they are also part of the “great resignation.”

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. Elf chatting with a person at the beach. "I used to work in HQ up north. But when the Big Guy started allowing remote, I hopped on the next plane."

Dissemination Magic

Every time a bell rings, a stakeholder reads your report.

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "Perhaps our dissemination strategy shouldn't rely entirely on Christmas magic."

Pot Luck Needs Assessment

I drew this cartoon even though I’m not sure if anyone is really potlucking these days. I still avoid any situation with unmasked non-family members. And everyone bringing a dish, yikes!

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "We should do a needs assessment before this year's holiday pot luck. Maybe that way we'll end up with more than just paper plates and potato chips."

RCT Christmas

It’s too easy to pick on RCTs.

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "Honey, did you see this letter from the North Pole? They're going to do Christmas as an RCT. It's randoized, so we have no way of knowing whether or not the kids will get any gifts fro Santa."

Ghost Downsizing

Did you know that instead of spirits, Dickens first draft of a Christmas Carol featured three evaluators?

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "Hello Mr Scrooge. My name is Ethan, I'll be your ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. There used to be three of us but our org really cut back our evaluation budget."

Superspreader Christmas

Toyed with drawing a cartoon about Santa being high risk for COVID. You know given his weight, age, and habit of bingeing on cookies and milk.

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "Mom, I'm worried Christmas might be a super spreader event. Santa literally goes into everybody's house. Think we should ask if he could leave our gifts on the porch like the Amazon guy?

A few oldies.

Given that my audience fluctuates, thought I would share some of my favorite holiday cartoons from past years.

Perennial audience favorite – pie chart ugly sweater

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "At the dataviz ugly sweater party." "Did we all go with pie charts again?"

Counterfactual Wonderful Life

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "You've been given a great gift George: A chance to see what the world would be like without you." "So like a really well designed counterfactual in an impact evaluation?"

Time to census some cookies

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "Would you like to sample the cookies" "They all look so good. I think I would prefer to census them."

Elf on the Shelf M&E

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. Referring to an Elf on a Shelf. "What is that creepy thing staring at us?" "According to mom, it's Santa's new monitoring and evaluation system.

Bad, Good, and Child IDs

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "Santa, in order to do this data collection the right way we're going to need a more specific definition of "bad and good." We're also going to need to assign unique child IDs, this first name stuff won't fly."

Checking the lights.

Freshspectrum cartoon by Chris Lysy. "The lights are not working, did you check them all?" "No, but I checked a random sample that should have been representative of the entire population.

Any favorites of yours that I’ve missed?