Evaluation Planning – 1.04 Working Group(s)
The working group will consist of the people who should be responsible for and directly involved in evaluation planning, implementation and utilization. This group should represent a range of perspectives from within the program, as well as the organization. If you are working with an organization to conduct evaluations on multiple programs you will need to determine if each program needs its own working group, or if they can start off together then break apart later. Things to consider when deciding which staff members to include in the working group are:
Who needs to be present in order to obtain a complete picture of everything and everyone involved in and affected by the organization and its relevant program areas and programs, and the roles of key players?
Who cares about the program areas and programs, and why?
Is there anyone who might be upset to later find out that they were not included in a conversation about evaluation?
Who from the organization or program is able to participate in this process? The significant time required to participate should be carefully considered.
If evaluation capacity will be measured, who is the best person or group of people to fill out the Organizational Evaluation Capacity Survey? This may be the organization’s director or key decision maker.
Who should complete the Program Evaluation Capacity Survey? This is usually the Evaluation Champion, program leader and/or staff.
As the evaluation effort continues, the working group(s) will likely become smaller – and more focused on the program staff. Maintain flexibility about who to involve in each step throughout the planning process.
Once the working group is identified, it can be helpful to create a contact list of all participants so that when you work with many offices in the same system or organization you may share it with all participants so they can contact each other easily and begin building an evaluation network.