Operationalize the Evaluation Plan

This chapter will help you to operationalize your evaluation plan. That means putting together a plan for your evaluation that is clear and achievable, and that meets your program needs.

Building an evaluation plan requires a fair amount of brainstorming and coordination, setting deadlines, and assigning responsibilities to each member of your team. There are many other important components, and therefore this will be one of the longer chapters of this book.

Throughout this chapter and the remainder of the book, the Southern Primary HealthCare Clinic example will be used to illustrate certain points. Although this is a fictitious organization and program, the case study was built using examples from several existing organizations and government survey data. A general summary of the case study is provided below for your information.

Although your program is likely different than the Southern Primary HealthCare Clinics, use of this example will hopefully help to illustrate key points in this manual and allow you to think through the components of evaluation as they apply to your own program.