{"id":13680,"date":"2015-06-09T05:47:01","date_gmt":"2015-06-09T10:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/?p=13680"},"modified":"2015-06-10T19:07:01","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T00:07:01","slug":"sherry-campanelli-and-laura-newhall-on-evaluation-in-times-of-change-or-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aea365.org\/blog\/sherry-campanelli-and-laura-newhall-on-evaluation-in-times-of-change-or-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Sherry Campanelli and Laura Newhall on Evaluation in Times of Change or Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi. We\u2019re Sherry Campanelli<\/strong>, Program Compliance Manager and Laura Newhall<\/strong>, Clinical Training Coordinator, from the University of Massachusetts Medical School\u2019s Disability Evaluation Services<\/a> (DES). As an organization, we are committed to ongoing quality improvement (QI) efforts to enhance our services for people with disabilities especially during times of major change or crisis. It hit home recently when a blog by Sheila Robinson identified a topic<\/a> that AEA365 readers\u00a0were interested in and something we\u2019ve struggled with ourselves: \u201chow to incorporate evaluation when there\u2019s a myriad of other seemingly more pressing tasks without pushing it to the back burner.\u201d<\/p>\n

When an organization is in a time of crisis (high staff turnover, new business processes, or increased work load), it\u2019s difficult to maintain QI efforts and evaluation. There will be pressure to suspend or reduce internal evaluations in favor of more urgent tasks. Evaluation is always important, but rarely urgent. So how do we preserve a commitment to evaluation during these times?<\/p>\n

Developed by the 34th U.S. president, the Eisenhower Box is one effective approach for addressing this challenge. It\u2019s a systematic method to assure that reacting to urgent demands doesn\u2019t prevent important tasks from being accomplished. It categorizes tasks along two axes and four quadrants based on degree of importance and urgency. The figure below demonstrates how the Eisenhower Box is used to prioritize and address work demands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Eisenhower Box:<\/p>\n

\"Muhr\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The key to preserving on-going evaluation efforts is to schedule time to perform activities while resisting the temptation to address only<\/em> urgent demands. The danger of not prioritizing \u201cimportant but not urgent\u201d tasks is that you will either fail to accomplish the tasks or not finish them in a timely manner. Completing all important tasks, whether urgent or not, is critical to organizations creating forward motion.<\/p>\n

Lessons Learned:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are some lessons learned on how to best integrate evaluation into the myriad of pressing tasks without pushing it to the back burner.<\/p>\n