Evaluation competencies and skills
Regardless of your role, evaluation competencies underpin successful job performance and career advancement. Understanding these competencies will help you identify how to leverage them in your career.
Competency frameworks
Competencies are the skills, knowledge, and behaviours needed to succeed in specific roles. For young and emerging evaluators, understanding and building these competencies can guide career development.
There are several competency frameworks that describe the skills, knowledge, attributes and behaviours required to fulfil evaluation positions. These frameworks can be organised around skill levels, such as novice, skilled, or expert. Some frameworks focus on evaluation, others on monitoring, and some cover both. Different organisations, like government departments or professional networks, sometimes develop their own competency frameworks to support different roles or sectors.
Each competency framework offers a different perspective on the skills needed in evaluation, providing flexibility to adapt competencies to specific sectors, geographic areas, and evaluation settings. This adaptability allows you to take a personalised approach, using frameworks as tools to map out your career progression, pinpoint areas for skill-building, and enhance their overall effectiveness in the field.
When considering which skills and knowledge to develop in your evaluation career, it's helpful to explore a few key domains of knowledge and skills. Different competency frameworks often categorise different domains differently, but some common areas across competency frameworks in M&E include:
- Professional knowledge involves understanding the ethics, values, and standards that guide evaluations. It also includes promoting the role of evaluation in policy and practice.
- Technical skills relate to methodologies, data analysis, and choosing the right tools based on the scope and context of the evaluation. This can include quantitative and qualitative methods or sector-specific expertise.
- Managerial competencies focus on planning and implementing evaluations, ensuring tasks are completed on time and within scope. This can include leading teams, managing resources, and coordinating stakeholders.
- Interpersonal skills are essential for effective communication and collaboration with colleagues, stakeholders, and participants. This area also covers conflict resolution and managing relationships in a way that fosters teamwork.
- Contextual knowledge helps you adapt evaluation practices to different cultural, political, and organizational environments. This includes understanding the unique dynamics of each evaluation setting and incorporating the perspectives of diverse stakeholders.
By reflecting on competency frameworks, you can tailor your skill development to the context in which you work, whether you need a broader set of skills or specific expertise for a certain role. Different frameworks may emphasize these areas to varying degrees, so exploring a variety of them can help you decide which align with your career goals.
Overarching skills
Evaluation competencies are comprehensive and a good place to learn what skills are required for a career in evaluation. However, there are a few important skills that are key for ethical and responsible practice in evaluation. Many competency frameworks include these, but they are worth paying particular attention to as they are critical for all evaluators, emerging or established. These include:
Evaluative thinking
Evaluative thinking involves the ability to apply critical, creative, and inferential thinking to interpret data. It necessitates the formulation of empirical and evaluative questions, along with the identification of values that guide the interpretation of data.
Find out more about evaluative thinking
Cultural competency
Cultural competency ensures that evaluations are attuned to the cultural context of the communities they are designed to serve. It involves leveraging local knowledge and expertise to yield outcomes that are more meaningful and have a greater impact.
Find out more about cultural competency here.
Tips from an emerging evaluator
"As young and emerging evaluators (particularly of the Global majority), your diverse cultures and unique perspectives are strengths, not limitations. Embrace your authenticity, let your imaginations flourish, and infuse your cultural identity and heritage into your work. It is through this fusion of self and practice, nurtured by constant reflection and growth, that you will discover and refine your 'special sauce' – that distinct flavor that makes your contributions invaluable to the evaluation field.”
Ethical practice
Ethical practice involves protecting the rights and well-being of all people involved in evaluations, seeking truth and being transparent.
Find out more about ethical practice here.
Tips from an emerging evaluator
“As an evaluator, one must uphold professional ethics in getting the work done. It is only when you respect the culture, tradition, norms, and beliefs of the evaluand and the people that you will get the true nature of the evaluand.”