Adventures In Evaluation Podcast

The Future of Evaluation: A Chat With Michael Scriven

This week we're thrilled to have Michael Scriven, frequently called "the father of evaluation", as our special guest.  Michael chats about his chapter on "The Foundation and Future of Evaluation" in the new book, The Future of Evaluation in Society: A Tribute to Michael Scriven.  Check it out here or subscribe to our podcast on iTunes for free.

For more details on Michael's work you can visit his website here.

Feel free to leave us your comments below, and don't forget to rate us on iTunes to give us some feedback!

Enjoy,

James & Kylie

   

Western vs. Development Evaluation: Commonalties and Differences

In this episode we explore some of the differences between typical Western-style evaluation and the monitoring & evaluation (M&E) that occurs in an international development context.  To help us, we invited two guests with experience working in both areas, Ian C. Davies and Tom Pellens.

Here are some of the links we mention:

• John Mayne and Contribution Analysis
• Jennifer Greene and Mixed Methods
• European Evaluation Society 2014 conference 

Below is the cartoon mentioned by Terry Smutylo and Daniel Morales-Gomez.

 

Until next time,

Kylie & James

New Year's Resolutions for Evaluators!

Happy New Year Everyone!...okay...we're a little late with that...but we have a short new podcast!

Many of us have personal New Year's resolutions, but what about professional ones?  In this episode James and Kylie share their evaluation resolutions for 2014.

Got some of your own?  We'd love to hear them so leave us a comment below.

Cheers

Kylie & James 

P.S.  Kylie just thought of another resolution she forgot to mention - use a systems lens!

Anyone for a Horse Race?

Anyone in the mood for a horse race?  Today we tackle the issue of different and competing evaluation approaches, models, types, whatever you want to call them, plus the challenges of inconsistent terminology in our field. 

Here are the two articles we mention by Paul Duignan:

• Terminology in evaluation: Approaches, types (purposes), methods, analysis techniques and designs
• Untangling Evaluation Terms – Discussing Evaluation 'Types' With Clients Often More Useful Than Evaluation 'Approaches'

Here's the Evaluation Typology map that Kylie mentioned.

If you're interested in the free Evaluation Glossary Mobile App you can download it here. 

As usual, we'd love to hear your comments below. 

Until next time, 

James and Kylie

Game Changers for Evaluation: A Chat with Hallie Preskill

This week we're thrilled to have Hallie Preskill join us to give a shortened version of her keynote speech at CES2013 in Toronto.

Here are links to some of her current work, plus the Developmental Evaluation graphic she mentioned:

• Evaluating Social Innovation
• Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement
• Buiding Evaluation Capacity
• Reframing Evaluation Through Appreciative Inquiry
• Developmental Evaluation graphic (full article)

And here is this link to the book she mentioned on Big Data.

Don't forget to leave us your comments below.

James & Kylie

2013 CES Conference Preview

Hi Everyone, This week we've got Dawn Campbell-Borland and Dayna Albert as guests giving us a sneak preview into this year's CES conference in Toronto, June 9 - 12th.  This year's theme is "Evaluation Across Boundaries". They have some great workshops, keynotes, and presentations lined up, so have a listen!

For more information about the conference please visit http://cestoronto2013.ca/.

Cheers, Kylie & James

Oh My God It's March: Dealing with March Madness

It's March again, and evaluators everywhere are frantically racing to meet multiple deadlines.  (In fact, Kylie almost forgot to post this episode herself.) Have a listen to James and Kylie discussing some of their techniques for dealing with March madness.

How do you deal with it? Leave us your comment below.

Humour and Evaluation

This week we're pleased to have Chris Lysy, evaluation cartoonist, as our special guest. Chris talks with us about the use of humour in evaluation. To see more of Chris' evaluation funnies visit his website here. And here's a link to another example of humour in evaluation: Roger Miranda's Eva the Evaluator.

Evaluation Proverbs, Prepping for Results, and Mobile Data Collection

Hi folks, This week we again chat about a number of miscellaneous items including helpful proverbs for explaining evaluation in different cultures and mobile data collections. Here are the links to the West African Proverbs for evaluation and the 30 Ideas for Building a Culture of Evaluation. You can join the AEA365 Tip A Day here and all the Evaluator Christmas Carols here. Apologies for Kylie's singing. Cheers, James & Kylie ps-bigger apologies about my countertop ramblings!!~James :)

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

In this episode Kylie and James debrief their respective weeks in evaluation and end up covering a multitude of subjects including re-discovering one's stats skills, evaluator objectivity, and reporting to senior execs. To see the Chris Lysy cartoon we reference click here. Here's an example of the Post-it note technique Kylie refers to: And the stock photo: "Help, my son is a stock photo photographer..." And here's the link to the Government of Canada's Treasury Board report, "2011 Health of the Evaluation Function" that we...uh...didn't get around to discussing. Until next time, James and Kylie