1. Evaluation comes at the end of a project.

The discussion about conducting an evaluation should be part of the planning phase of a project. During this phase, logic model, theory of change, budget, monitoring plan along with evaluation approach need to be clearly defined and outlined. This will help the project team to address time and money issues early throughout the process. Time and budget constraints are among the most recurrent barriers to project evaluation.

2. Evaluation is a separate activity of the project.

Evaluation is not a separate task that should be performed if time permits. It should be embedded in the project activities. Thereby, resources such as time, budget and staff should be allocated to the planning and implementation of an evaluation.

3. Evaluation is the responsibility of the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) staff exclusively.

Though the onus of implementing an evaluation is on the M&E team, other stakeholders including project staff, partners, clients, and donors should be involved in the evaluation process. Their thoughts and inputs should be collected and incorporated in each phase of the evaluation.

4. Conducting evaluation is just a box-ticking exercise.

Conducting an evaluation should be considered beyond compliance purposes. Even if the donor or funder does not require it, implementers are strongly encouraged to develop a strategy to evaluate their project. It will enable implementing organizations to assess the project outcomes and to document changes that their intervention brought about in the community that benefited from it. Evaluation also creates learning opportunities for the implementer.

5. The decision to conduct an evaluation hinges on the project size.

Project evaluation is independent of the size of a project in terms of budget, scope, outreach, and implementation length. No matter the budget, the duration, the geographic coverage etc., every project should be evaluated.