Developing evaluation and communication capacity for impact and adaptive management (DECI-AM website)

The DECI-AM "Developing Evaluation and Communication Capacity for Impact and Adaptive Management" website contains evaluation and research communication mentoring tools, articles and case studies.

The content is relevant to practitioners, commissioners of evaluation & communication, and to scholars in both fields.

This resource and the following information was contributed by Ricardo Ramirez.

Authors and their affiliation

Developing evaluation and communication capacity for impact and adaptive management (DECI-AM website)

Key features

Designing evaluation and communication strategies together creates a learning space that enables projects to be clear on their goals and strategies. DECI began in 2009 and is now in its fifth phase, focusing on how our mentoring helps partners in organisational learning and adaptive management.  We are sharing our approach, case studies and three e-primers directed at practitioners.   

How have you used or intend on using this resource?

We have been using this hybrid approach for the last few years and we will continue adapting it. We have found that partners gain a ‘way of thinking’ in both evaluation and communication, which enables them to become more reflexive in their work. The first Primer provides an introduction to Utilization-Focused Evaluation (UFE); the second describes our hybrid approach combining evaluation and communication planning; and the third one focuses on our evaluation capacity development lessons. Our website includes a searchable data based with over 20 case studies summarizing our mentoring experiences.

Why would you recommend it to other people?

I would recommend the website to the following audiences as:

• Evaluation Practitioners will find examples of utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) and developmental evaluation initiatives will be able to learn about the benefits of introducing communication planning early on into an evaluation process.
• Communication Practitioners will find examples of research communication (ResCom) used as a tool to help research projects design their communication strategies early on and will be able to learn about the added value of introducing evaluation questions into communication planning.
• Mentors and Facilitators of Learning will learn about the value of just-in-time mentoring, whereby projects receive support at their own pace, when they are ready and about the importance of a Readiness Assessment early on, to confirm that conditions are present within which demand-driven mentoring will be effective.
• Project managers and Commissioners of Evaluation will learn about the benefits of the simplified hybrid approach, where evaluation and communication planning enhance each other, and about the value of having project teams gain a sense of ownership over their evaluation and communication strategies.
• Evaluation trainers and educators will find case studies, conference papers and published articles in our searchable database.