Someone remarked to me the other day, “Oh, I think measurement is great; it helps a lot of companies figure out what they are doing well and not so well and helps them plan, but I’m not sure I understand how it can help us.” I thought
Read more →Archive for the Featured Posts Category
I just recently came across a post that I wrote about a year ago for the American Evaluation Association’s AEA 365 A Tip-A-Day by and for Evaluators blog. If you have any interest in evaluation or measurement-related issues, the Tip-A-Day series is an excellent resource that chock-full
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I often hear nonprofit and government employees become frustrated with the “language” of evaluation. On occasion, I’ve even seen a promising evaluation effort go off the rails because the terminology was confusing. What’s an input? …An output? …An outcome? If you’ve been seeking definitions that can
Read more →Just this week, I discovered a fantastic new resource for program evaluators, or anyone else who geeks out on real-world research like me. Eval Central is the place “Where Evaluation Blogs Intersect”, including great contributors such as the American Evaluation Association, EvalThoughts, and Evaluation Unsanctioned, as well
Read more →A few weeks ago, I enthusiastically jumped in my Honda with a clear intention on lunch with a colleague in Williamsburg, about one hour from my office near Richmond. I knew the broad strokes of how to get there, but needed an assist for the final approach, so I plugged the address into my handy GPS. As I entered the interstate, my friendly GPS voice calmly shared this feedback “Awaiting Better Accuracy”.
Read more →I recently traveled to Denver, CO for Evaluation 2014, the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association. It was an incredibly fun and informative trip, filled with networking, new techniques, and innovative resources. Hurrah for continuous improvement! Last year, I reflected on the event in the style
Read more →A post from our special guest blogger, Ann Emery… Logic models, log frames, and theories of change, oh my! No matter what you call them, logic models are crucial evaluation tools for all nonprofits. Here are the top 5 things all nonprofit leaders should know about logic
Read more →You’ve probably heard the phrase “the cobbler’s children have no shoes,” which is used to describe the phenomenon where professionals are so busy with work for their own customers or clients that they neglect using their skills to help themselves or those closest to them. I recently
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Structuring questions appropriately is critical to collecting meaningful, interpretable information from customer surveys. In this last post of our blog series on creating effective customer feedback surveys, we will focus on tailoring the complexity of your survey questions. The following questions demonstrate how alternative question wordings
Read more →Question specificity is an important part of crafting your customer survey. Vague questions may not elicit useful information. On the other hand, overly specific questions may not be relevant to all of your survey respondents. Finding the right balance of specificity can impact the usefulness of the
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