RE: Reporting and supporting evaluation use and influence | Eval Forward

Great take-away...

One point to stress.

Going beyond the report does not mean "make a visual report".

A visual report is nicer, but still a report.

"Going beyond the report" means to consider the evaluation as a process that does not end just one product - being visual or not.

Communication of findings, sharing of ideas need to happen throughout, in many forms.

A good evaluation does not need to be a "report".

I advocate for strategies, options for sharing ideas and findings with different audiences, throughout.

Which might NOT include a report. Report writing is extremely time consuming, and takes away a big % of evaluation time.

Is it the best investment? Is it needed? We are so used to think that an evaluation is a report that we do not question it.

Also... beside real time evaluations there is "real-time information sharing".

This is something too little explored. Yet it can create big changes in the way evaluation happens.

It is about sharing preliminary ideas, evidence, so that people involved in the evaluation can contribute to shape findings.

Again: we are so used to think that we share the "end products" that the possibilities of real-time information sharing are not really understood...

Thanks again for the great summary, it really help to step up discussion and to generate new ideas

(and, you know what? It is a good example of "real-time information sharing" of new ideas! :-)