Thanks again for all your inspiring and thought-provoking contributions.
I realise I didn’t share anything yet about the way we are using visual tools in FAO’s office of evaluation (OED), where I’m currently based.
Our mission at OED (visualised below) is to enable well-informed decisions. One of the ways we are trying to achieve this (a pillar in the strategy model below…), is by creating communication products which are accessible and useful to our key evaluation users.
To do this, OED’s knowledge and communications team meets with evaluation teams to identify the key evaluation users and consider what insights from the evaluation will be useful to them. Based on this discussion, we work together to develop communication products to share relevant messages with different audiences. We use visual tools to make these messages more accessible to those who will not have the time or inclination to read a full evaluation report, or who may be interested only in a particular aspect of the findings.
The office has a call-down contract with a visual practitioner (me!) to create visual products as and when we need them. This ongoing arrangement allows us to respond quickly to opportunities, develop visuals in an iterative way and to fine tune and update our products as needed.
Icons: this one represents one of FAO’s ‘four betters’ – better production
and cartoons
This cartoon was used in a webinar on our approach to meeting SDG goals.
Moving forward (and inspired by ideas coming from this discussion) I would like to see our team building feedback loops to monitor and improve the effectiveness of the various products and channels we use. I hope we will also be able to integrate visual tools more deeply into OED’s work: not only to communicate findings but to engage with stakeholders throughout the evaluation process, and to support the other pillars of our strategy in some of the ways described in this discussion group.
So, watch this space! A summary of our discussion and a blog will be available soon on the Evalforward website. I look forward to continuing to share ideas with you all over the coming months.
RE: Can visual tools help evaluators communicate and engage better?
Thanks again for all your inspiring and thought-provoking contributions.
I realise I didn’t share anything yet about the way we are using visual tools in FAO’s office of evaluation (OED), where I’m currently based.
Our mission at OED (visualised below) is to enable well-informed decisions. One of the ways we are trying to achieve this (a pillar in the strategy model below…), is by creating communication products which are accessible and useful to our key evaluation users.
To do this, OED’s knowledge and communications team meets with evaluation teams to identify the key evaluation users and consider what insights from the evaluation will be useful to them. Based on this discussion, we work together to develop communication products to share relevant messages with different audiences. We use visual tools to make these messages more accessible to those who will not have the time or inclination to read a full evaluation report, or who may be interested only in a particular aspect of the findings.
The office has a call-down contract with a visual practitioner (me!) to create visual products as and when we need them. This ongoing arrangement allows us to respond quickly to opportunities, develop visuals in an iterative way and to fine tune and update our products as needed.
The products we have been testing so far include:
Whiteboard animations and videos:
short…
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/O33rOoVylSk
And longer…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S3BeOtpn9k&t=245s
Infographics: this one visualises a case study from the SDG 14 evaluation.
Visual highlights of evaluation reports
https://www.fao.org/evaluation/list/country-programme-evaluation-of-fao-in-jordan/en
Icons: this one represents one of FAO’s ‘four betters’ – better production
and cartoons
This cartoon was used in a webinar on our approach to meeting SDG goals.
Moving forward (and inspired by ideas coming from this discussion) I would like to see our team building feedback loops to monitor and improve the effectiveness of the various products and channels we use. I hope we will also be able to integrate visual tools more deeply into OED’s work: not only to communicate findings but to engage with stakeholders throughout the evaluation process, and to support the other pillars of our strategy in some of the ways described in this discussion group.
So, watch this space! A summary of our discussion and a blog will be available soon on the Evalforward website. I look forward to continuing to share ideas with you all over the coming months.
Harriet