Outcomes chasm

Years ago, I was asked to help evaluate an after school program. We began the planning process with a discussion of what to measure, how, and why.

It’s not unusual for people to have differing opinions about what’s most important to measure, but this project always sticks out in my memory as one of the bigger divides.

I’m sure this isn’t exactly how it went, but it felt like:

Me: So, you want to know whether the kids are doing better because of their time here? What do we want to look at to capture that?

Every person in a leadership position at the organization: Grades!

[Simultaneously] Everyone running the program: Relationships!

[Crickets]

Me: Ooookay.

We spent time talking it through, anchoring the conversation on who the evaluation results were for and what would be most important for them to see (fyi - everyone wanted data that program staff could use to make improvements, so you can probably guess the direction we headed in…it wasn’t grades).

What if we hadn’t figured it out then? What if we spent a bunch of time convincing schools to use their valuable time to send us student grades, analyzed that data, turned it into pretty charts, and then handed it over to program staff who would have taken one look at it and said “how does this help us”?

Evaluation planning is a perfect excuse to get people in a room to hash things out. And I think it ultimately brought the team closer together.

Don't let your team fall into the outcomes chasm. Some thoughtful planning will save you a lot of hassle in the long run. If you need structure for this, I have a worksheet for that!