Coming soon to an intervention near you – SUSTAINABILITY!

Andy Rowe here, writing from long experience and physically from our small farm on Salt Spring Island off of the Canadian coast of British Columbia.

Years ago, when I was involved in the theory and practice of rapid social change, many of us argued that gender and race were the main divisions created by those with power to forestall significant social change.  When others stated natural resources were also important we called them Malthusians.  We were wrong.  Race and gender are the main mechanisms creating social inequality, hardship, constraining human change and improvement, but the human system exists only in the context of natural systems which cannot continue to absorb our disregard and provide us with what we need.  We now see significant adjustments to adapt to these fundamental sustainability issues.  Evaluation can either contribute to these changes or get left behind.

Many evaluators have the implicit view that only the human system merits our attention.  To a large extent this is because they accept that interventions should be evaluated against their intended outcomes and unintended and indirect effects.  This means that evaluation works within the programmatic silos in which most interventions we exist. But in this period of significant transformation change agents, including evaluators, need to get in front of the curve and incorporate connectivity to other elements in the human and natural systems.

Example – within ten years, current models for locating and managing school sites will be unacceptable; sustainability requirements will have shifted expectations and standards.  Decisions about school siting and site management will address costs of building on valuable carbon sequestration sites, remediate adverse effects of pollutant-carrying runoff from pavement, offset of global warming impacts from roofs and heating and cooling, and incorporate the incremental environmental and health costs of daily commuting.  In other words siloed siting and site management decisions disconnected to environmental, human health and community effects will not be acceptable. For evaluation to contribute to positive change it will need to span the boundaries of existing programmatic silos across diverse systems and elements.

Hot Tip: Think about everything that makes our existing program theories happen. What natural resources are required inputs to, and are affected by, an intervention. Example: schools require land and adversely affect water.  Check out UN Natural Capital’s site: TEEB – The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity.

Rad Resources: Check out ISEAL Alliance stakeholder engagement process. Think about how many evaluation impacts we measure could meet the standards they have developed.

For school sites, start with EPA’s school siting guidance.

Google “Corporation and Sustainability” as in this example from Mars. Compare what this corporation is doing to the interventions you evaluate.

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The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Environmental Program Evaluation Week with our colleagues in AEA’s Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EPE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

sustainability

Hi everyone!  I’m Yvonne M. Watson, a Program Analyst in U.S. EPA’s Evaluation Support Division (ESD) and Chair of AEA’s EPE TIG.  I’m primarily responsible for managing the division’s internal evaluation capacity building efforts. I read Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis to understand the importance of a culture that values performance measurement.  The book focuses on the life of Billy Beane, former general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team and his efforts to use unconventional stats to select members of his team.  Though I did not inherit my grandmother’s passion for baseball, this book helped me gain some important insights that can be applied to the measurement and evaluation of our programs.

Lessons Learned:

1. Leadership and Using Performance Data and Evaluation Results.  Billy Beane used baseball stats to make decisions about the players that were drafted, traded or let go.  He also demonstrated the critical role of leadership in convincing organizational members to try a new measurement approach.  Our organizations have to take the next step in moving from merely collecting information to routinely analyzing performance data and using evaluation results to inform the decisions we make about our programs. Equally important is the task of asking the right questions and collecting the right data to accurately communicate performance.  These data can either tell a story of fact, fiction, drama, poetry, or comedy.
2. Data Quality.  Michael Lewis notes that “…inadequate data led the people who ran major league baseball teams to misjudge their players and mismanage their games.”  Similarly, inaccurate and poor quality performance data and evaluation results can lead program managers and decision-makers to misjudge, mismanage, over-value or under-value programs.  Investing in the infrastructure to support good quality performance data and evidence needed for evaluation is crucial.
3. Insiders and Outsiders. In baseball there are insiders (players, managers) and outsiders (statisticians).  Our organizations and programs can benefit from program insiders who have a wealth of subject matter expertise and knowledge about a program’s goals, clients and underlying assumptions and outsiders – analysts, evaluators etc. external to the program who bring a fresh  perspective at how to measure or evaluate a program.  These individuals can help broaden our thinking about our program’s design, measures, processes and procedures.
4. Thinking Differently.  Billy Beane exhibited a willingness change things that no longer worked.  In short, he learned to adapt.  Likewise, our organizations – if they are to succeed, must adapt.  We must challenge ourselves not to rely on what we “know or see” but be willing to dig deeper, challenge the status quo and look at our problems, programs and solutions differently.

Rad Resource: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Environmental Program Evaluation Week with our colleagues in AEA’s Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EPE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

measurement · performance measurement

Hello. I’m Sara El Choufi, and I work in Results-based Management at the Global Environment Facility (the GEF), an agency within the World Bank. While most of the work relies on qualitative analysis and pulling out results from ongoing projects, no assessment can ever be complete without numbers. Among other things, I work on data analysis; I try to find new and creative ways to present the thousands of data sets that come out of the GEF to our governing board and council. What does this mean? Simple, when reporting time comes around, I start living and breathing spreadsheets; all day, every day! Two years of daily work with Excel, I find myself learning something new every day, and I realize I have yet to use this program to its full potential.

Excel can be frustrating at times. You just got stuck on multiple arrays when working with a data set of 1,000+ entries, you have managed to replicate entire pivot table without using pivots because your data is too complex, and you Googled your formulas for the 3^rd time that week! The good news though is Excel can be programmed to do almost anything you can imagine. That’s when the cool stuff starts. ACDC (as in the band) programmed the first Excel music video! No really, they did! Check it out.

Rad Resource: Excel Everest – a webpage of cool tips and tricks, tutorials, and just plain awesome stuff done with Excel. Excel, as the peeps in Excel Everest would say, “was designed, well, to be rather boring – numbers, charts, pivots, vlookups – more utility than fireworks.”

Rad Resource: Excel Unusual – A Blog for Applied Science, Engineering and Games in Excel. Put out by a group of engineers to share cool ways of solving engineering problems or just interesting modeling of natural phenomena in Excel. Their ideas range from a 3D flight simulator, to an animation of City Light in North America.

Fun Stuff: The most fun I’ve ever had working with Excel (or shall I say NOT working), was when playing Excel games. Excel games range from the basic “name that logo” to the classics such as “Pac Man” and “Tetris”, to most recently, “Angry Birds”, “Fruit Ninja”, and the likes.

Check out games on Games Excel.

So next time you receive a data set and start wondering “how am I going to pull this off with such a basic tool,” think about the versatility of the program, how much can be achieved with it, and how user friendly it is in comparison to any other tool out there.

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The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Environmental Program Evaluation Week with our colleagues in AEA’s Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EPE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

excel

I’m Lee-Anne Molony and I’m a Principal Consultant at Clear Horizon. We’re an Australian consultancy who specializes in participatory monitoring and evaluation for environmental management and agricultural programs. This post will talk about a technique we developed, Collaborative Outcomes Reporting (previously known as Participatory Performance Story Reporting). This technique is currently being used nationally across the sector and has been endorsed by the Australian government.

Cool Trick: The Collaborative Outcomes Reporting technique presents a framework for reporting on contribution to long-term outcomes using mixed methods and a participatory process.

The process steps include clarifying the program logic, developing guiding questions for the social inquiry process and a data trawl. The approach combines contribution analysis and multiple lines and levels of evidence, it maps existing data against the theory of change, and then uses a combination of expert review and community consultation to check for the credibility of the evidence about what impacts have occurred and the extent to which these can be credibly attributed to the intervention.

A suggested process in undertaking Collaborative Outcomes Reporting

Final conclusions about the extent to which a program has contributed to expected outcomes are made at an ‘outcomes panel’ and recommendations are developed at a large group workshop involving representatives of those with a stake in the program and/or its evaluation.

They have now been used in a wide range of sectors from overseas development, community health, and indigenous education, but the majority of work has occurred in the environmental management sector, with the Australian government funding 14 pilot studies in 2007-8, and a further 10 (non-pilot) studies in 2009.

Many organizations have since gone on to adopt the participatory process outright, or specific steps within the process, for their own (internal) evaluations.

Lesson learned: Organizations often place a high value on the reports produced using this technique because they strike a good balance between depth of information and brevity and are easy for staff and stakeholders to understand.

They help build a credible case that a contribution has been made. They also provide a common language for discussing different programs and helping teams to focus on results.

Rad Resource: A discussion of the process can be found on our website and the manual for implementing the technique is available at the Australian Government Department of Environment website.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Environmental Program Evaluation Week with our colleagues in AEA’s Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EPE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

Environmental Program Evaluation · reporting outcomes

My name is Anna Williams.  I’m an independent evaluator based in Seattle, Washington.  I evaluate global societal challenges.

I would like to have reason to unlearn a lesson.

How many of you tune out when you hear the word “environment”?  If you are a self-described “environmentalist” do you see eyes glaze over when you use this word?

Observe.

Be honest.

I experience about 90 percent “glazage.”

Why?

I postulate that even progressives poorly understand environmentalism, and that environmentalism is anything but homogeneous.  Like with religious extremism, the behaviors of a few do not represent the many, nor should they.

Nonetheless, preconceptions and barriers are real.  Environmentalists are anti-progress and anti-prosperity.  They don’t “get” socially or economically driven work. They speak a different language.  Environmental evaluators are no different.

Right?

I hope I’m wrong…

Billions of people who are least responsible for – and are most vulnerable to – global problems like overfishing and lack of clean water, are taking the brunt of global environmental (societal) problems.  Water is the future gold, though food security will compete.  These are humanitarian concerns, driven by compassion for people, not to mention countless other species.

Do you perceive walls between environmental evaluators and other evaluators?

Do eyes glaze over when the word is spoken?

Are environmental sessions at the AEA’s annual conference well attended?

At a conference I recently attended in Kathmandu on evaluation for development in South Asia there was serious “glazage.”  Evaluators in Indonesia, India, and elsewhere painfully described the challenge of conveying the relevance of their work on climate change and other “environmental” issues.

Yet not only are our hearts in the same place, but as evaluators we use the same methods and face the same challenges.  We can and should help each other.

Some of us are, though to get there I stripped “environmental” from my title. I don’t mention it when I meet people, and I hope that the word’s appearance in my degrees will not be held against me, even though I believe that, if disclosed, it will be.

Modern environmentalism started as conservationism, which in this country used to be a bipartisan issue (root word = conservative!), but long before we deeply understood that conservation was fundamental to our survival.

I hope this false dichotomy between “environmental” and “social” will fade once more and those of us in the closet can come out unapologetically and without consequence.

Rad Resources:

More public health and humanitarian organizations – and evaluators – are connecting the dots.  Here are a few rad resources along these lines:

• Climate Change: our Sin of Omission
• The Arab Spring and Climate Change
• Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security
• Two Hungry Nations Collide Over Fishing

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The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Environmental Program Evaluation Week with our colleagues in AEA’s Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EPE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

Environmental Program Evaluation

Hello, I’m Tracy Dyke-Redmond, a Senior Associate at IEC, an environmental and economics consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I work on all types of evaluation and performance measurement for EPA and other federal clients.  Recently, we have seen an uptick in interest in evaluating adaptation planning efforts to respond to the effects of climate change. As states and federal agencies ramp up their climate change adaptation efforts, they want to track their progress and understand if their efforts are successful. This is challenging, since many climate change adaptation efforts are in the early planning stages, and relatively few efforts have resulted in projects in the field.

Hot Tip:  Given the state of the science on climate change adaptation and the diversity of projects affected by climate change, agencies interested in measuring progress are more likely to focus on activities and processes, rather than outcomes. Developing ways to measure the extent to which organizations are integrating climate change considerations into existing procedures is a very important step toward understanding the state of response to climate change.

Rad Resource: The U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment is a comprehensive study ofclimate change science and impacts in the United States.  The draft report is available now and includes a chapter on Adaptation that presents an informative overview of climate change adaptation activities at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels in the United States. The report is due to be finalized in 2013.

Rad Resource: The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (formerly the Pew Center on Global Climate Change) maintains information on federal and state actions on climate change adaptation, as well as market & business and international adaptation resources.

Rad Resource: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maintains a website on climate change adaptation that describes climate impacts and adaptation efforts by region of the country and by sector.

Lesson Learned:  Climate change adaptation requires partnership across federal, state, tribal, and local jurisdictional boundaries. Coordination and information sharing is essential for making progress, particularly in these early stages of learning which adaptation strategies are appropriate and effective in difference situations.

Lesson Learned: There is considerable uncertainty about the best approaches to adaptation in any particular location or situation. As the science continues to evolve, many jurisdictions are taking a “no regrets” approach, recognizing that efforts to make communities more resilient to climate change often have other benefits such as improving readiness for all types of natural and manmade disasters and enhancing overall quality of life.

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The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Environmental Program Evaluation Week with our colleagues in AEA’s Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EPE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

Environmental Program Evaluation

Hi, fellow evaluators! I’m Jess Chandler, a consultant at Energy Market Innovations, a small firm primarily focused on energy efficiency and renewable energy program evaluation.

Rad Resource – jessachandler.com: This blog is a combination of several voices of me, from personal concerns to evaluation methods. The content here has adapted over time and has only recently been more focused on evaluation. I’d also invite folks to check out The Oil Drum and The Energy Collective, two great energy focused blogs that sometimes reflect upon evaluation.

Clipped from: jessachandler.com (share this clip)

Hot Tips – favorite posts: I find that I am more enamored with posts of other evaluators than my own, but here are a few posts that I like:

• 10/4/2012 – More better Better Evaluation: This is a quick post about the revamped Better Evaluation site. The folks at Better Evaluation are doing great work to collect and distribute evaluation ideas. I also couldn’t resist the opportunity to encourage more front-end work on evaluation.
• 9/3/2011—A more meaningful regression analysis: This post also redirects readers to another blog, but I love sharing resources like this that can help people. Methods are so necessary!
• 2/3/2010 – Energy Efficiency Potential: This post considers the value of energy efficiency potential studies, which are critically important, but can be completed prematurely in the planning cycle—I propose a two stage process here. Outside of efficiency, other planning or forecasting exercises may face similar constraints.

Lessons Learned – why I blog: I’m certainly not an example of what I see as an ideal blogger (yet) – someone who consistently posts new and exciting content. I sometimes tweet about something and never remember to update my blog.  I blog because:

• I love to share great resources with colleagues and friends
• The outlet is an ideal place to test out ideas and let them gel
• It provides a record of thoughts over time, and is helpful for reflection on changing ideas

Lessons Learned – what I’ve learned: The big picture: Blogging is real work. However, I have learned that I get about as much out of blogging as I put in. I love to hear from people who are interested in my tweets and blog posts.

This winter, we’re continuing our series highlighting evaluators who blog. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

No tags

Hello! I’m Annelise Carleton-Hug, principle partner of Trillium Associates, a research, evaluation and consulting company serving clients with programs involving the intersections of environment, education and communities. In this post, I challenge you to evaluate how you can make your own lifestyle more ecologically conscious.

Greendex, a study of 17 countries by National Geographic, currently in its 4^th year, is measuring consumer progress toward more environmentally sustainable consumption. The typical American lifestyle exerts such a massive demand on Earth’s ecosystems, or “environmental footprint,” that Americans scored the least sustainable of all countries. A few major lifestyle decisions, including type of housing and vehicle, have the greatest impact on your ecological footprint. However, even if you’re not interested in changing your housing or transportation, there are many choices we face on a daily basis that have profound impacts on the environment. Fortunately, there are many terrific resources available to help you make informed decisions and lessen your own environmental impact.

Rad Resource: One of the best things to do is to BUY LOCAL. You reduce your ecological footprint, and you will eat healthier, while supporting your community. Find options near you at localharvest.org.

Rad Resource: The GoodGuide website provides expert rating for thousands of products (household, appliances, cars, etc.) on health, environment and social impacts to help consumers make purchasing decisions that reflect their preferences and values. iPhone owners can get a free app from the GoodGuide that allows you to scan while you shop to determine how safe, green, healthy and socially responsible different products are.

Rad Resource: Greener Choices, an initiative by the people behind Consumer Reports, offers accessible, reliable, and practical information on buying greener products that have minimal environmental impact and meet personal needs.

Rad Resource: The Center for a New American Dream is an inspiring organization working to help people reduce their consumption and focus on quality of life, environmental protection and social justice. From their mission statement: “The Center seeks to cultivate a new American dream – one that emphasizes community, ecological sustainability, and a celebration of non-material values, while upholding the spirit of the traditional American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Rad Resource: The Environmental Working Group’s guide to pesticides in produce helps you to find out which fruits and veggies are safe, and which to avoid (a.k.a. “The Dirty Dozen”).

Rad Resource: Remember to get outside and appreciate nature. Locate great hiking options wherever you wander – backpacker.com allows you to search by zip code, city, or state.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Environmental Program Evaluation Week with our colleagues in AEA’s Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EPE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

No tags

My name is Matt Keene; I work with the US Environmental Protection Agency and coordinate the Environmental Evaluators Network. The purpose of the EEN is to advance the field of environmental evaluation through more systematic and collective learning. Founded in 2006, the EEN is comprised of conservation, and natural resource evaluators and evaluation consumers from academia, consulting, foundations, government, and non-profits. Though diverse, EEN participants have a common belief – the environmental sector can do better.

Rad Resource: Environmental Evaluators Network. This site provides updates and links for all of the EEN events internationally.

Hot Tip – 2012 US EEN/AEA Forum – Environmental Evaluation: in the Public Good – an unconference! July 18- 19. Washington DC. American University. Registration and Information here.

The 2012 US EEN Forum will provide a facilitated “open space” for participants to design the agenda, content and goals of the Forum. Unlike traditional conferences, there will be no formal panels or speeches. Everyone present, in person or not (Yep…Twitter, Linkedin and blogs…), will have the opportunity to share, discuss, network, collaborate and learn throughout the two day event.

Hot Tip – 2012 EEN Mexico Forum. July 12. Xalapa, Veracruz.

I’m Alex Ortega-Argueta and I work with the Environment and Sustainability Network at INECOL. This year, in coordination with the International Conference on Public Policy to be held in the city of Xalapa, Veracruz, the EEN Mexico Forum will highlight experiences and recent progress in the field of environmental evaluation in Mexico and Latin America. Framed by the theme “Evaluation of complex dynamic systems”, the objectives of the EEN Mexico Forum are to:

1. Gather professional evaluators in Mexico and Latin America and promote institutional collaboration and capacity development;
2. Identify opportunities for partnerships and development of work plans between diverse sectors (government, academia, civil society);
3. Strengthen technical capacity and coordination between sectors through exchange of knowledge, experience, methods and instruments;
4. Promote the field of environmental evaluation in governmental, academic, public and private spheres.

Hot Tip – 2012 European EEN Forum February 9-10. Leuven, Belgium.

We are Lieven De Smet (Research Institute for Work and Society (HIVA) at Katholic University Leuven) and Lisa Eriksson (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA)). In early 2012 HIVA hosted the first European EEN forum to address environmental evaluation from various perspectives: demand side expectations, side effects and methodological challenges. Discussions also delved into the potential roles of EEN in EU environmental policies and management. To address the particular challenges of environmental evaluation in Europe the European EEN aims to establish specific workgroups and an online networking and knowledge exchange platform. EEN participants in Europe are focusing particular attention on the evaluation of transitions. This issue will be a focal point at the 2013 European EEN forum to be held in Stockholm and hosted by SEPA.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Environmental Program Evaluation Week with our colleagues in AEA’s Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EPE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

Forum

My name is Valerie Williams and I am a Program Evaluator at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). One of the programs I work with is Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), a worldwide, K-12 environmental science and education program.

Many environmental education programs struggle with the question of whether environmental education is a means to an end (e.g. increased stewardship) or an end itself. This question has profound implications for how programs are evaluated, and specifically the measures used to determine program success.

Hot Tip: Investing time out the outset to understand the history and evolution of the program is critical. Program evaluation must be based on a clear understanding of the program purpose, structure, and theory of change. Determining a program’s intended purpose may be challenging for programs with a long history. Over time, the program purpose may be reconceptualized, without subsequent changes in design and/or theory of change. Former Vice President Al Gore’s 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, provided a clear description of the original vision and purpose of the GLOBE program:

Specifically, I propose a program involving as many countries as possible that will use schoolteachers and their students to monitor the entire earth daily. Even relatively simple measurement could, if routinely available on a more nearly global basis produce dramatic improvements in our understanding of climate patterns. (p.356)

This clarified the primary expected outcome of the program – dramatic improvements in our understanding of climate patterns; the primary activity to achieve that outcome – students monitor to the entire earth daily; and the central program design feature – involve as many countries as possible.

Lessons Learned: An evaluability assessment (EA) is always a good idea. EA is often considered useful in deciding whether to evaluate new programs, where the program’s readiness for evaluation is in question. However, EA offers other benefits regardless of the program’s developmental stage, including:

• Surfacing disagreements among stakeholders about the program theory, design and/or structure
• Highlighting the need for changes in program design
• Clarifying the type of evaluation most helpful to the program.

Rad Resources:

• Evaluability Assessment; Examining the Readiness of a Program for Evaluation provides an overview of how to structure an EA and a list of findings that would indicate that a program is not ready for evaluation. (free for download)
• Evaluability Assessment to Improve Public Health Policies, Programs, and Practices is a great article that reviews EA in the context of public health programs and offers useful illustrations of how EA was used.
• The Assessing the Feasibility and Likely Usefulness of Evaluation chapter in the Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation is one of the principal documents from a pioneer of this methodology, Joe Wholey.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Environmental Program Evaluation Week with our colleagues in AEA’s Environmental Program Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our EPE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

evaluability assessment