Evaluation Development and Capacity Building Options:
- Workshops and seminars – see below for topics
- Technical assistance and advice
- Coaching and capacity building
- Working alongside your staff on a live project in a coaching/support role
- Facilitating an entire “learning by doing” evaluation process involving staff and/or other stakeholders
Workshop and Seminar Topics:
Workshop content is tailored to the needs of the client and audience, particularly for in-house workshops. A sample of popular topics includes:
| Topic | Synopsis |
|---|---|
| Value for money | Conventional and creative ways to answer the ‘value for money’ question – even with intangible outcomes |
| From ‘What’s So?’ to ‘So What?’ | An introduction to real evaluation (includes an introduction to evaluation rubrics and how to formulate 7 +/- 2 ‘big picture’ questions to guide an evaluation) |
| How good is good? | Hands-on creation of evaluation rubrics for judging quality and value using qualitative, quantitative or mixed method data |
| What outcomes should we be tracking? | Strengths and needs assessment (for policy and programme design and for needs-based evaluation) |
| Why do we think this will work? | Logic modelling including how to generate a basic but sound evaluation design from a logic model and Scriven’s Key Evaluation Checklist |
| How will we know if the programme contributed to change? | Broad-brush causal inference using qualitative, quantitative and mixed method data – eight practical strategies, something for every budgetary, timeline and logistical constraint |
| Evaluating proposals and job applications | An introduction to synthesis methodology for ‘ranking’ – may be applied to the evaluation of proposals to supply products, services, research or evaluations, or the evaluation of job applicants (personnel evaluation) |
| The evaluation commissioner’s boot camp | An overview of evaluation for those who commission rather than conduct evaluations – what is evaluation, the main options available, questions to ask a prospective evaluator, fatal mistakes in the commissioning evaluations, effective management of evaluation projects, how to evaluate and ensure the evaluation delivers value for money) |
| Organisational learning, organisational culture and evaluation | Great ideas from evaluation and organisational theory to build an action plan for infusing evaluative thinking and practice into strategic, policy and operational functions |
All workshops are facilitated by Dr. Jane Davidson, with occasional involvement of other presenters as advertised (for public workshops) or agreed with client (for in-house workshops).
Upcoming workshops and symposia:
The following public workshops are anticipated for 2011 – please subscribe to the site’s feed to ensure you are notified of any offerings (see RSS and email subscription options in the top right corner).
- Actionable answers for real-world decision makers. Australasian Evaluation Society workshop tour around the regions in Australia and New Zealand
- Actionable answers for real-world decision makers. American Evaluation Association conference, Anaheim, CA, early November 2011 (please check back after July 2011 to confirm this offering)
- Suggest a workshop you’d like to attend!
