Did you know that Monitoring and Evaluation is the most effective management tool you didn't even know you had? Well, many organizations rarely evaluate how their programmes are performing, and when targets are missed, they heap the blame on some obscure external factor.
What are monitoring and evaluation?
While monitoring and evaluation go hand in hand, they refer to different concepts altogether. Monitoring requires you to analyse the data relating to the progress of your programme. You may discover areas of weakness which require improvement. But monitoring would be meaningless without evaluation.
Having analysed the progress of your programme, you need to evaluate the outcome. Evaluation allows you to compare the outcomes of your programme against your strategic goals. Are the outcomes in line with the strategic plans?
The process of evaluation can be:
Formative: Aimed at improving the strategies employed in a project or organisation, and undertaken during the life cycle of the project or organisation.
Summative: Based on the outcomes of the completed project or the organisation that is no longer functional.
Importance of monitoring and evaluation
Monitoring and evaluation may not necessarily be a silver bullet that you need to propel your programme to the next level, but you will learn that it is an indispensable management tool in the following ways:
It lets you determine whether your current activities, organisational structure and processes are effective. They could very well be the culprits behind the stagnation of your programme.
It helps you to gauge the performance of your project or organisation against set objectives. You can determine whether you are making an impact, whether it is efficient, and if something can be done to improve its efficiency.
Through monitoring and evaluation, the management gets the necessary information required for proper decision-making on the improvement of a programme instituting any relevant changes in planning to enhance the outcomes.
It also helps you to identify any problems in the management of a programme or project and their root causes with a view to streamlining processes for better results.
EvaluCore is here to assist with all of your monitoring and evaluation needs. Want to find out more? Send us a note.
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