Managing and Implementing an Evaluation - guidelines and tools for Evaluation Managers

This guide, authored by Alice Willard for Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the American Red Cross, aims to provide guidance to evaluation mangers on key aspects of the implementation and evaluation process.

Excerpt

"Our intention in writing this module is to provide evaluation managers with solutions on how to implement evaluations. The evaluation manager, described in the Preparing for an Evaluation module, is generally a staff member in the operating country who has been given the additional responsibility of ensuring that a field evaluation moves smoothly from its initial terms of reference through the dissemination of the report’s findings. The module focuses on what needs to be done throughout the evaluation process to manage the evaluation team and minimize the inevitable disruptions to the project’s own implementation plan. The module thus provides examples and strategies to improve communication and coordination, combined with some basic vocabulary of methodological choices to understand why evaluations may require different approaches. The module emphasizes the similarities in managing evaluations, rather than those differences. However, managing the evaluation process is likely to be roughly the same, no matter when the evaluation occurs in a project or program cycle." (Willard, 2008)

Contents

• Managing and implementing an Evaluation
• Overview 1
• Big Picture Issues 7
• The Nitty Gritty Details 24
• Evaluation Management 26
• Evaluation Manager Interactions with Stakeholders and the Evaluation Team 34
• Contracts, Communication, and Deliverables 38
• Organizing the Evaluation 42
• Dealing with the Unexpected 43
• Management Skills 50
• After the Fieldwork and the Report: After Action Reviews 56
• Tools and resources annexes
• Annex I Managing an Evaluation Tool 59
• Annex II Budgeting Monitoring and Evaluation System for Evaluation Managers 60
• Annex III Bibliography 61
• Annex IV American Evaluation Association Guiding Principles 63