Evaluation is an important part of the implementation process. At what point should evaluation begin? At what point should the readjustment process begin? How would you go about determining this? Are these processes the same for every project? Why or why not?
DQ 12-1: Evaluation in Project Implementation
It is important to evaluate the project’s outcomes against the original goals to establish the effectiveness of interventions. In project management, evaluation refers to a systematic assessment of a project to determine whether it is achieving the desired results (Skivington et al., 2021). It is a crucial phase of the implementation process. Evaluation normally precedes monitoring, the process of assessing whether the activities of an implemented project went as planned. While evaluation is often performed at the end of a project in most cases, it is important to note that evaluation should be conducted to assess the results of each of the project elements including inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes (Carnahan et al., 2020). As Carnahan et al. (2020) explain, evaluation should not only focus on programmatic outcomes but should also explore results across different project elements. This helps the project team to understand specific areas that need to be improved to achieve the desired impacts of a project.
The information gathered from the evaluation guides the project team to know specific areas that require adjustment for a project to realize the desired outcomes. The readjustment process should begin after the evaluation is complete. The reason is that it is during this time that the project team will have understood aspects of the project that did not go well. The need for readjustment is determined when the evaluation results indicate that the implemented intervention is not achieving the expected outcomes (Skivington et al., 2021). Every project needs to be evaluated because this is the only way the project team will understand whether the intervention is generating the desired outcomes or results. However, the approaches taken in the evaluation process might vary from one project to another due to variations in the nature of programs.
References
Carnahan, E., Gurley, N., Asiimwe, G., Chilundo, B., Duber, H. C., Faye, A., Kamya, C., Mpanya, G., Nagasha, S., Phillips, D., Salisbury, N., Shearer, J., Shelley, K., & Gavi Full Country Evaluations Consortium; and Global Fund Prospective Country Evaluation Consortium (2020). Lessons learned from implementing prospective, multicountry mixed-methods evaluations for Gavi and the Global Fund. Global health, science and practice, 8(4), 771–782. https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-20-00126
Skivington, K., Matthews, L., Simpson, S. A., Craig, P., Baird, J., Blazeby, J. M., Boyd, K. A., Craig, N., French, D. P., McIntosh, E., Petticrew, M., Rycroft-Malone, J., White, M., & Moore, L. (2021). A new framework for developing and evaluating complex interventions: update of Medical Research Council guidance. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 374, n2061. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2061