What’s the Easy Outcomes site all about? September 20, 2007
Posted by Paul Duignan in : Doing evaluation more efficiently, DoView, Easy Outcomes, Evaluation planning , trackbackI’ve realized that I’ve not put up a post about the Easy Outcomes site even though it’s been up for a few weeks. Easy Outcomes takes the Systematic Outcomes Analysis approach and applies it using DoView outcomes software. We developed it in response to feedback that the Systematic Outcomes Analysis site is a bit intense for those who just want to work out how to develop a good evaluation plan, but don’t want to get buried in the detail of the approach too soon.
The concept is for the Easy Outcomes site to provide a user-friendly introduction to using the approach. At the points in applying the approach where some users may want more detail they are given the option of clicking out to the relevant area of the Systematic Outcomes Analysis site to pursue what they are wanting to find out about in more detail. This will let us keep the Easy Outcomes site clean, simple and user-friendly while we can can reserve the more heavy-duty material for the Systematic Outcomes Analysis site.
The Easy Outcomes site is structured around a set of 12 steps which you can follow in building a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan. In any one situation you may not need to do all of the steps, but with Easy Outcomes you can be sure that if at a later time you need to go back and do one of the steps, the work you’ve already done will be compatible with the new step you are working one.
Easy Outcomes will be used by all sorts of people with a range of evaluation experience from experienced evaluators to those with little experience. The way we’re trying to meet the needs of those people using Easy Outcomes who’re relatively inexperienced, is firstly giving them clear instructions on how to set out their monitoring and evaluation plan. However, when they come to topics which require in-depth evaluation knowledge (e.g. outcome evaluation or economic evaluation design) we suggest that they take relevant detailed material from the Systematic Outcomes Analysis and get those with more skills and experience to help them fill out the relevant section. The advantage of this is that they don’t need to go to those with such expertise and ask them to design their whole evaluation plan, they can just ask them to help them fill in one section of a plan which already has clear format and sections of which will already have been developed.
There’s a Resources page on the site which provides a DoView file template which people who have DoView can just download and start using to draw up their monitoring and evaluation plan. Also on the resources page there’s a Powerpoint file which you can download which includes three presentations – a general one on how to use Easy Outcomes, one for high-level stakeholders on what they can get out of Easy Outcomes and one setting out the guidelines for drawing outcomes models which you can use with the team who are working on drawing up the outcomes model.
Let us know any comments you have on the site by emailing us via the contacts page on the Easy Outcomes site.
Paul Duignan (outcomesblog.org)
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