DEVELOPMENTAL

Developmental means we assume that the most significant parts of the work we want to do together are complex, rather than complicated. Complicated problems are ones that, once you figure out how to solve them, stay solved. Complexity is about the things that defy solutions, that shift and change and react to what we do (and don’t do) as well as to the patterns of the larger, equally complex systems in which we’re all situated. Complicated approaches are about building roads and driving down them to a fixed and pre-determined destination. Working in complexity is taking a boat out onto the ocean and navigating an emergent path with an end-goal in mind but many different and shifting ways to get there.

There will be complicated aspects to everything we do, but we must also be ready to embrace the complex with methods that are appropriate to that context and not try to drive a car into the sea. A developmental approach is about providing enough structure that we can keep moving in the direction we want while being able to make the most of what is uncertain and emergent. This helps us learn and develop as we go when we are in conditions that don’t let us begin with everything mapped out.

EQUITY-FOCUSED

Equity-focused means we understand that our work is taking place within a larger context that is marked by pervasive, systemic injustice and inequity, that we are never disconnected from or unaffected by this, and that this shows up as racism, colonialism, classism, ableism, and other inter-related forms of oppression. What it means is that unless we actively work to make our change efforts, and our evaluations of them, focus on serving equity and creating justice, we will uphold existing patterns of inequity and injustice.

In evaluation, this looks like asking critical questions about what forms of knowing and knowledge are considered credible and by whom, how “worth” is defined and according to whose values and beliefs, who is asked to be accountable and who is not, and what the appropriate ethical standards and protocols are for a just evaluation practice. Very specifically, I am guided by the Equitable Evaluation Framework™ and by resources such as the characteristics of white supremacy culture. An equity-focused approach doesn’t exclude using particular methods or types of data (like quantitative). It means being transparent and reflexive about why and how we are using any particular method and to what effect, which is also part of doing the best evaluation possible.

COLLABORATIVE

Collaborative means that we work together. This is “evaluation with” rather than “evaluation on”. You—and anyone else who needs to be—will be part of the evaluation design, implementation, analysis and sensemaking, recommendations and action-planning. I will bring my technical expertise, tools, and processes, and you will bring your content and context expertise, skills, and perspectives. Why? Because in complexity, collaboration is the most efficient way to work. When the people being impacted by evaluation are involved in the process, it creates the connections and feedback loops necessary for rapid learning and rapid response. From an equity-focused perspective, meaningful collaboration is part of doing evaluation in a community-owned and community-accountable way.

There are many ways to approach collaborative evaluation, and we will begin with a conversation about capacity, resources, and who needs to be involved in what ways to create a strategy that will make this meaningful and practical. I use capacity-building practices and a hands-on learning approach that means you come away with tools and processes you can keep using long after our evaluation work is done.

I share more about the understandings behind my practice in my blog post, ‘Evaluation is for everyone’.

I am grateful to be a member of the Equitable Evaluation Initiative’s Consultant Practice Partner pilot.

I engage in the practice of the Equitable Evaluation FrameworkTM (EEF), which seeks to reimagine the purpose and practice of evaluation by seeding and growing a field to advance equity and expand notions of validity, objectivity, rigour, and embrace complexity.