monitoring and evaluation
A plan is only useful if it works in practice. Monitoring and evaluation will help you assess this and gives you information to improve the programme or service in the future.
monitoring
Monitoring means checking at regular intervals on progress. This may involve:
- monitoring progress against your operational plans (including any specific project plans) and/or
- monitoring of the services you provide.
OPERATIONAL PLAN MONITORING
Monitoring your operational plans should be a part of the regular board or management committee meeting (generally monthly or quarterly).
SERVICES MONITORING
To be effective, services monitoring should be:
- regular
- systematic
- planned
- purposeful and meaningful
- structured into the way the group is managed.
The type of services monitoring data to collect may include:
- client numbers (by age, gender, ethnicity, income level, referral source etc)
- problems/issues being addressed (or not addressed)
- results of interventions
- level of unmet need (e.g. waiting lists).
It is also useful to monitor trends in relation to overall service demand or provision, for example:
- changing consumer/client group
- changes in the wider community
- changes in inter-agency working
- impact of any particular local events on the services.
Regular, systematic monitoring provides information that can inform planning and provide a reliable basis for service evaluation.
evaluation
WHAT IS IT?
Evaluation is a more formal process to help you find out:
- whether the project or programme being evaluated is working as planned
- the impact that your group/project or programme is making.
Evaluation is an essential phase in the planning cycle and will provide you with information to improve the programme.
Evaluation involves the systematic collection and analysis of data needed to make decisions. It is an essential aspect of good decision-making. It helps establish the appropriateness, effectiveness, efficiency and economy of a service, project or policy. Ideally evaluations are a process for learning about improving the quality, effectiveness and/or efficiency of proposed and existing services, projects and policies. In some instances evaluation processes are required to gain support from, and other accountability to, funders and other stakeholders.
(From Evaluation Guide,
Christchurch City Council).
STARTING POINT FOR AN EVALUATION
Plan the evaluation as part of the overall planning for the project or programme. When you set the programme outcomes or objectives, ask yourself "how will we know whether we are meeting these outcomes/objectives?" This is the starting place for the evaluation.
Evaluation checklist
During an evaluation of a service or programme, ask yourself:
What did we set out to do? What did we expect as a result?
What did we do?
How did we do it?
What resources did we use?
What has happened as a result?
What was achieved?
How did this match what we expected to achieve?
What unexpected things happened?
How successful has the programme/service been?
What can we learn from what happened?
What changes (if any) do we want or need to make, and why?
How will we do this?
What would we do differently if we were starting again?
ENSURING THE EVALUATION IS EFFECTIVE
To be effective, an evaluation must be:
- relevant
- “owned” by the participants (i.e. participants believe it to be a useful exercise)
- timely
- manageable in terms of:
- scale
- resources (personnel and cost)
- process/method
- planned and systematic
- include all relevant contributors
- acted upon.
Tip
Too often an evaluation finishes with the evaluation contractor’s report that is used to impress potential funders, clients and other stakeholders. The next stage is to feed the results of the evaluation back into the planning cycle to improve the service.