How can you use program evaluation models to measure the impact of your operational plan on the community?
Operational planning is the process of translating your strategic goals into specific actions and resources that will help you achieve them. However, how do you know if your operational plan is actually working and making a positive difference in the community? That's where program evaluation models come in. Program evaluation models are frameworks that help you design, implement, and analyze the effectiveness and impact of your programs and interventions. In this article, you will learn how to use three common program evaluation models to measure the impact of your operational plan on the community: logic models, outcome mapping, and theory of change.
A logic model is a graphical representation of the logical relationships between the inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts of your program. It serves to illustrate how your program is supposed to work and what results you expect to achieve. To use a logic model effectively, you need to define the resources and inputs such as staff, budget, materials; the actions and processes such as training, workshops, outreach; the direct products and deliverables such as number of participants, hours of service, materials produced; the short-term and medium-term changes and benefits; and the long-term and broader changes and benefits that occur as a result. You can create a table or diagram that shows these connections and how they contribute to your impact. A logic model can help you measure the impact of your operational plan on the community by clarifying your assumptions, identifying your indicators, and linking your actions to your goals.
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The first question you must ask is what will drive a need to evacuate. Define the problem. Things to consider what drives this event. Some things to consider. Is it in advance or post event evaluation? Do you need to evaluate an entire jurisdiction or partial evacuation What are you time constraints.
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Conduct surveys with personal feedback section (for consideration), if the target audience doesn’t know the expectations or outcomes, then you don’t have the most important piece invested or engaged! If the target audience identifies the problem areas within a given survey, consider the feedback for implementing adjustements that reflect the ground truth!
Outcome mapping is a participatory approach that focuses on the changes in behavior, relationships, and actions of the people and organizations that you work with and influence. It acknowledges that the impact of your program is determined by the complex and dynamic context in which it operates. To use outcome mapping, you must define a vision - the long-term change that you want to see in the community and world as a result of your program - as well as a mission, boundary partners, outcome challenges, progress markers, strategy maps, and performance journals. Outcome mapping can help you measure the impact of your operational plan on the community by capturing its diversity, unpredictability, and intangibility. It also allows you to involve your boundary partners and other stakeholders in the process of planning, monitoring, and evaluating your operational plan by using qualitative and quantitative data to track and document progress and learning.
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Leaders and Managers are the most important participants in the operations process. While staffs and employees perform essential functions that amplify the effectiveness of operations, managers and leaders drive the operations process through understanding, visualizing, describing, directing, leading, and assessing operations. Accurate and timely running estimates maintained by the employees, assist leaders in understanding situations and making decisions. Remember these three steps in mapping. Drive the operations process. Build and maintain situational understanding. Apply critical and creative thinking.
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I have found this partucularly useful to list out dependencies and risks, which otherwise would be revealed only very later in the operational cycle. This process helps to have productive discussions and many of the participants finds it much easier to understand the scope chnage when its listed this way. I have found collaborative tools like Miro coming in very handy for this exercise.
A theory of change is a comprehensive and causal explanation of how and why your program leads to the desired impact. It articulates your assumptions, hypotheses, and evidence about the change process and the context in which it occurs. To use a theory of change, you need to define the impact, outcomes, outputs, activities, inputs, assumptions, and context. This will enable you to plan, monitor, and evaluate your operational plan by creating a narrative or a diagram that shows the causal links between these elements and how they lead to your impact. Additionally, you can measure and verify your outcomes and assumptions with indicators, data sources, and methods. In this way, a theory of change can help you measure the impact of your operational plan on the community.
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