Using visual outcomes models to describe and communicate best practice April 3, 2009
Posted by Paul Duignan in : Communicating outcomes models, Doing evaluation more efficiently, DoView, Easy Outcomes, Evaluation planning, Outcomes models, Outcomes systems architecture, Outcomes theory, Reporting systems, Research influening policy, Strategic planning, Using the approach , 4commentsYesterday I blogged about what is meant by the term ‘best practice’. As I said then, I think that there is some conceptual confusion out there about it, and I am not sure that I have yet tidied it up my own thinking about it in a satisfactory way. However, the great thing is that regardless of how we define it, the idea of identifying the types of things that people currently call best practice and communicating these between programs is a great idea. The most difficult thing in many cases is to get best practice actually applied to on the ground after we have identified it. I have put up an Outcomes Theory Knowledge Base article (link to the article is at the bottom of this posting) on the issue suggesting that an efficient way of describing and communicating best practice may be to use visual outcomes models (a type of logic model). (more…)
What exactly is ‘best practice’? April 2, 2009
Posted by Paul Duignan in : Evaluation debates, Impact evaluation, Outcomes theory, Philosophy of science, Use of terms, Using the approach , add a commentIdentifying and communicating best practice is widely recommended in many sectors and disciplines. But I’ve sometimes wondered as I’ve sagely recommended in a serious voice, ‘I think that we should use an approach based on identifying and implementing best practice here’ exactly what best practice is? I think that doing it is often a good idea and I can work out how to identify it and share it, and I will blog about that tomorrow, but what I’m not clear on is exactly how we define ‘best’ in the term ‘best practice’. It’s not clear whether best practice consists of: 1) claims that practitioners, from their own experience, believe the practices concerned to be feasible and ‘useful’ to implement; or 2) practices which have been proven to improve high-level outcomes (through making a strong outcome/impact evaluation claim of some sort such as is made using some of the types of designs listed here). (more…)
Simplifying outcomes terminology – angels dancing on the head of a pin! April 1, 2009
Posted by Paul Duignan in : Accountability, Attribution, Communicating outcomes models, Doing evaluation more efficiently, DoView, Easy Outcomes, Outcomes theory, Reporting systems, Using the approach , add a commentIn the middle ages, churchmen occupied themselves by having long discussions sitting around the fire drinking fine wine and discussing how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. It was tough, but someone had to do it! That was until someone called William of Occam came along. He is famous for spoiling the party with something called ‘Occam’s Razor’ – one way of describing the way he operated was that the did not want people to ‘multiply entities beyond necessity’ (see Wikipedia entry). What he was talking about was trying to keep things as simple as possible. This is the approach which is taken within outcomes theory. (more…)