Wednesday, March 20, 2019
We’re
Robin Taylor (RTRES Consulting),
Erin Burr (ORAU), and
Ann Martin (ORAU) and over the years our evaluation work has focused on STEM education and workforce development programs. Each of us have familiarity with project management (PM) and have worked on numerous projects that have required adjustment of our evaluation approaches, PM styles, and the availability of PM tools we can use. Throughout our careers in evaluation, we have noted a parallelism in the five PM process groups outlined in the
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) and the phases for conducting and completing evaluation. The figure shows the five process groups of PM and shows the parallelism of evaluation activities for each process. It is important to remember that while there is a natural sequence to processes, there is also an iterative interaction among processes.
Hot Tip: The
Project Management Institute offers a number of certifications in PM, but even if you don’t want a certification, invest in resources such as the
PMBOK Guide book to help gain an understanding of PM. The learning you receive can support your growth and increase your skillsets as an evaluator.
Rad Resources: A plethora of tools and software exist to support document management (e.g.,
Dropbox,
Google Drive,
Office 365) and project management (
asana,
trello,
wrike). Find the resources that meet your needs and continually share what you learn with others.
Lesson Learned: Leveraging the tools and approaches you utilize or select for PM, including documents and resources you create for PM purposes, can add value to the evaluation and to the projects/programs you evaluate. For instance:
- Use the records from PM tools and conversations as sources of evaluation data.
- Utilize evaluation plans, communication plans, and data management plans to benefit the project.
- Leverage features of PM tools, like user access, documentation, and collaboration tools.
- Share project management products with project team.
- Demonstrate record-keeping and data storage compliance across multiple sites and funders.
The American Evaluation Association is celebrating STEM Education and Training TIG Week with our colleagues in the STEM Education and Training Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our STEM TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. 
About AEA
The American Evaluation Association is an international professional association and the largest in its field. Evaluation involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products and organizations to improve their effectiveness. AEA’s mission is to improve evaluation practices and methods worldwide, to increase evaluation use, promote evaluation as a profession and support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action. For more information about AEA, visit www.eval.org.