Monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment: making a difference

Course summary

“Not everything that counts can be counted. And not everything that can be counted, counts” Albert Einstein

The pressures for “change”, “getting results” or “having an impact” are ever-present in today’s workplace. Whether these arise from new initiatives or plans, change programmes or projects it has become increasingly important to demonstrate success or adapt to changing circumstances. But, as the quote suggests, these can sometimes be elusive. Monitoring progress and evaluation of results can help but what do you measure and when? How do you balance “doing the right thing” with “doing it right”?

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong” John Maynard Keynes

This one day introductory course will clarify your thinking, enable you to build monitoring and evaluation systems into your plans from the outset and help you demonstrate that you are making a difference.

Course outline

During the day you will cover:

• Building monitoring and evaluation into your project plans
• Impact assessment as part of the project lifecycle
• Deciding the types of information you need and when
• Preparing Terms of Reference for monitoring or evaluation activities
• The difference between outputs and outcomes
• Different ways of getting the information you need
• The six key questions you will want to ask
• How to demonstrate success and use the lessons learned
• A year of free support

Who is this course for?

This course is suitable for anyone with responsibility for making things happen. Whether you are a project manager, strategic planner, line manager or just “picking up the pieces” the tools and techniques covered will give you clarity and practical support in a wide range of situations.

The Centre works with organisations from all sectors including the public sector, voluntary sector, private sector and corporate sector.

What will this course help me do: learning outcomes?

By the end of the course, you will be able to plan and implement monitoring and evaluation procedures integral with your projects, initiatives or programmes, and from the outset. You will recognise what success or failure looks like, and have an appreciation of what information you need to make that decision. You will have some useful tools to enable you to demonstrate that you are making a difference.

Other courses to consider

The Centre offers a wide range of management courses including our popular management ladder. Management courses include Strategic planning and thinking, Business planning, Supervision skills and Project management.

Course dates

This course is run on request. This means that we will keep your details on file and once we have at least three people interested in the course we will contact you to let you know and to schedule a date. Please contact us to log your interest in this course.

Alternatively we can also run this as an in-company course. Find out more about in-company training.