Getting started
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This document discusses the importance of evaluation and distinguishing between outputs and outcomes. It emphasizes that evaluation should start with having a clear plan about what difference a program aims to make. Only then can an evaluation determine if the program achieved its intended outcomes. The document urges readers to avoid confusing outputs with outcomes and provides the definitions that outputs are the activities or services provided, while outcomes are the changes and differences that result from those activities. It advises asking "So what?" to help clarify the intended outcome of a program or intervention.
Getting started
- 1. Outcomes and evaluation: So What?!
- 2. Part One: Getting Started How do you feel when your hear the word… ‘evaluation’?
- 3. Like this?
- 5. Let’s put it another way… What is evaluation?
- 6. Is it this? • Analysing data and • Reporting findings
- 7. Or is it this? Getting started Collecting information Analysing and reporting Learn from your findings Using consultants
- 8. People who find evaluation Usually think it starts at the end…
- 9. They leave it too late before asking ‘What are we really trying to find out?’
- 10. Evaluation starts with having a clear plan about What you will do and The difference it will make
- 11. Only then can you find out: Did you do what you said you would do? (Some people call this ‘monitoring’) Did you make the difference you thought you would make? (Some people call this evaluation)
- 12. We could use jargon to complicate things. It can’t be that simple! I know, let’s talk Evaluese!
- 13. Speaking Evaluese If you want to talk to some funders, managers and evaluators it helps to know the difference between Inputs Outputs Outcomes That’s more like it!
- 14. • Inputs are the resources you put in to do the work: money, people, time, premises, equipment. • OutPUTs are the activities or services you put on for your users. • OutCOMEs are the changes and differences that come out of your activities. The science bit (concentrate)
- 15. Everyone is talking about ‘outcomes’. On the previous slide is the clearest and most sensible definition you’ll find. Did you spot it? Outcomes Outcomes Outcomes Outputs ? Do I mean targets?
- 16. Spot the difference • Tip: • If you’re not sure if you’re looking at an ‘output’ or an ‘outcome’, ask… Lots of people still confuse outputs (what you do) and outcomes (the difference you make).
- 17. So What?
- 18. Give it a go! • This year Evaluation Support Scotland ran 60 workshops throughout Scotland So What?
- 19. Um…lots of people took part! So What? Look, I’m not being funny, but So What? Maybe they hated it!
- 20. Oh no, they said they enjoyed it Well, that is strange… but So What?
- 21. Well, they learned stuff! Outcome!
- 22. All of these statements about ESS workshops were important. But they weren’t all outcomes. Asking ‘So What?’ helps you to be clear on the change or difference you want to make.
- 23. So…what’s this got to do with evaluation?
- 24. Getting started with evaluation means working out what you need to ask questions about. Example: Knowing how many courses you ran (output) doesn’t help you learn about what difference they made (outcome).
- 25. If you are clear on what to evaluate, you can avoid the common pitfalls of • Asking the wrong questions • Collecting the wrong evidence • Wasting precious time and money
- 26. For more information… • See the Resources section of our website • Find out more about out workshops (people really do enjoy them!)
- 27. Contact us Evaluation Support Scotland 5 Rose Street, Edinburgh 0131 243 2770 info@evaluationsupportscotland.org.uk