Design your evaluation before executing your strategy

Don’t make the mistake of ‘end of pipe’ evaluating. We often see sustainable development leaders think about evaluation after they realize their project. A good evaluation is initiated early in the project.

The quality of your evaluation depends for a great deal on how you design it. Designing your evaluation in an early phase has crucial advantages:

• You involve your stakeholders in measuring and evaluating. Without involvement, chances are that they don’t accept the results. With involvement, you prevent the ‘not-invented-here-syndrome’. They will listen to the results and will be willing to adapt their future actions. That’s what evaluations are for!
• You identify the questions you need to answer early, so you know what you need to measure during and after execution.
• You design the methods before execution so you know how you are going to measure results.
• You plan evaluation in an early stage so you know who will do it and how much it will cost. This gives you time to organize and look for resources and support when needed.