1. What Is The Purpose Of The Evaluation?

The purpose of an evaluation is one of the most important elements to clarify at the early stage of the evaluation process. It is crucial to know the main reason why you are doing the evaluation. Whether it is to determine/assess (Summative), investigate/understand (Formative) or explore/create (Developmental). The purpose of the evaluation has to reflect the interests of all stakeholders groups.

2. Who Are The Stakeholders And What Are Their Expectations?

Stakeholders have a major role to play in the success of your evaluation. It is highly recommended to carefully identify them and their expectations regarding your evaluation. Stakeholders can be the partners, clients, donors, project participants, organizational team, etc. Stakeholders’ expectations can be collected and analyzed through three main questions: What do they want? When and How do they want it? Providing responses to these questions will help you to develop a solid methodological approach that takes into consideration stakeholders' needs.

3. How The Results Of This Evaluation Will Be Used?

Most of the time, evaluations are done to meet the compliance requirements. Consequently, the results are not being used properly and effectively. The key element to consider for optimizing the use of your evaluation outcomes is to maximize buy-in from stakeholders. Indeed, you must conduct your evaluation in a way that all stakeholders feel heard, included, and involved. At the end of your evaluation process, consider developing, with them, an action plan based on the results of the evaluation with a clear RACI matrix so everyone can be aware of their roles and responsibilities.

4. Do I Have A Solid Data Analysis Plan?

Very often, we tend to develop the evaluation tools and collect data before developing the data analysis plan. As a result, we either ended up with a lot of data without knowing what to do with them or with not sufficient information to answer our evaluation questions. To avoid this situation, it is recommended to outline your evaluation plan before or while you are developing your data collection tools. This will help you to have effective tools to gather exactly the information you need for the purpose of your evaluation. A solid data analysis plan should, above all, allow you to answer your evaluation questions.

5. How Am I Going To Learn From The Whole Evaluation Process?

Many lessons learned and best practices will emerge from your evaluation process. If you don't collect them, they will disappear. Thus, as part of your evaluation, it is suggested to incorporate a learning and knowledge component with tools to capture and document all the lessons learned and best practices that will be generated by your evaluation. This approach will contribute to enhance the evaluation capacity of your team and position your organization as a learning organization.