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Session Title: Applying Developmental Evaluation in Innovative and Complex Situations
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Panel Session 791 to be held in Panzacola Section F4 on Saturday, Nov 14, 11:50 AM to 12:35 PM
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Sponsored by the Systems in Evaluation TIG
and the Human Services Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Michael Patton, Independent Consultant, mqpatton@prodigy.net
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| Discussant(s):
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| Kate McKegg, The Knowledge Institute Ltd, kate.mckegg@xtra.co.nz
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| Abstract:
What are the challenges and opportunities associated with ensuring that
evaluation is relevant and credible in innovative and complex
situations? Although both case examples presented in this session have
quite different contexts, they are both characterized by (1)
innovative, visionary leadership trying to create wider social and
system change and (2) complex, uncertain environments where there is
very little certainty about the outcomes that lie ahead. In this
session, the presenters will draw from their experiences to describe
and discuss how developmental evaluation was applied in both of these
contexts. They will illustrate how developmental evaluation enables
evaluators to be responsive to context, and open to the use of less
traditional evaluation approaches, such as critical systems thinking.
They will also discuss the benefits and challenges of this kind of
evaluation to the organizations, and for evaluators.
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The Development of a Bold Vision for Indigenous People - The Lessons
and Opportunities of Developmental Evaluation in a Complex Political
Space
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| Nan Wehipeihana, Independent Consultant, nanw@clear.net.nz
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In a bold move by a government agency, a program for indigenous people,
which for a long time has been delivered by mainstream providers, has
been given a new mandate. The new mandate is for indigenous people to
redefine programming in a way that allows them to revitalise and revive
traditional activities for a contemporary context and population. There
is formal permission and funding for indigenous people to develop their
own vision, theory and practice around what it means to 'be
indigenous', and to formulate and develop practice and delivery
mechanisms that give expression to this concept. This paper will
discuss the application of developmental evaluation in a new and
challenging context, where innovation, vision and the politics of
sovereignty come together.
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Maintaining Vision Amidst Uncertainty: Using Developmental Evaluation to Steer a Path Through Complexity
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| Virginia MacEwan, Wellink Trust, virginiam@wellink.org.nz
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A large mental health organization is working to develop a suite of
innovative mental health services, grounded in recovery principles and
approaches. The organization has a strong commitment to the recovery
paradigm, with its leadership open and willing to experiment and
discover sustainable principles of practice that are meaningful to the
consumers it works with. The wider context of mental health provision
is complex, with nebulous outcomes that are not easy to define or
measure, competing paradigms, unstable funding streams, rapidly
changing needs and client bases etc. The organization is using a
developmental evaluation approach to help them pursue their vision of
wider system change for the delivery of mental services. This paper
describes and discusses how a developmental approach has enabled the
organization to apply a range of approaches to evaluation, including
the use of systems approaches to build evaluative thinking and practice
into a highly complex environment.
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