Evaluation Insights
Data insights for evaluation is about taking the patterns that were identified in analysis and making sense of their meaning and potential impact to the work you do. In a nutshell, evaluation insights are what you can do with the findings, as well as what it all means for your organization, industry, or field.
Lessons Learned
What is it? Lessons learned are experiences, knowledge, understandings, or outcomes gained by experience from a particular project or program that should be taken into account on future projects or programs. Lessons could come from both positive and negative experiences, but whichever it is, the lesson must be significant in that it can impact future results.
Lessons learned differ from recommendations in that they usually come before recommendations are made. While sometimes lessons learned are discussed organically, oftentimes a dedicated discussion (analysis) is needed to draw out participant and managerial experience. This process could be a high-level debrief or a more detailed, complex approach. Furthermore, it can be planned from a project’s onset or after its completion. Ultimately, it aims to answer: 1) What were the expectations? 2) What happened? 3) What worked well (why)? 4) What did not work well (why)? 5) What should be done differently? To obtain this information, you must have candid conversations with those who are directly involved in the process. Participants must feel safe to answer with transparency. Regardless of the findings, a lesson learned analysis should not be done if your organization is not serious about organizational learning and using feedback to improve your programs. Asking without responding can damage your credibility.
If you are serious about making program improvements, our consultants can help you review your program, its successes and challenges, or facilitate a non-judgmental analysis to identify strategic lessons learned that will help build strong recommendations for program improvement.
How can we help you?
- Identify through statistical analysis or qualitative analysis the patterns in data and insights relevant to program improvement
- Train facilitators for debriefing
- Facilitate lessons learned analysis
- Develop solid recommendations for improvement
- Set up evaluation report format with reporting optimization in mind
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Lessons Learned
Lessons learned are experiences, knowledge, understandings, or outcomes gained by experience from a particular project or program that should be taken into account on future projects or programs.
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Learn MoreArticles and White Papers About Lessons Learned
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Read MoreFAQ About Lessons Learned
Lessons learned should come from multiple sources, not just a single source, so that the information gained can be reinforced and triangulated.
Starting with your methods section, and then working your way through your discussion, literature review, and introduction, and finally writing your abstract can be a helpful order to follow.
If future reporting is easy and quicker due to development of standardized data processing and presentation elements.
Document review can provide important background information for an evaluation, and it can bring to light considerations or issues around a project that may not be possible through other means of data collection. Document review is also typically unobtrusive since it does not require collecting data from participants, and it can be relatively inexpensive.
Data from document review can be inaccurate, incomplete, biased, disorganized, or irrelevant, therefore, it can also be time consuming to compile, organize, and analyze a large volume of documents.
What Our Clients Say About Us
Peggy Ostrander, DNPc, APRN, FNP-C Plano, Texas