Stage 2 - Criteria for success

In this stage the workshop focuses on the criteria for success in the evaluation. This is couched in terms of a question: “What needs to happen in order to achieve the agreed aim?” It is important to use accessible language and questions, hence “what needs to happen” instead of “what are the criteria of success”. It is important also for the evaluator to ensure that the language in the discussions is inclusive. This usually means asking for explanations and even getting the group to agree the banning of acronyms. Each group member is given five post-it notes and the group is asked individually to choose five things that need to happen and write one on each of the post-it notes. The participants then place their post-its on a flipchart. They are encouraged to bunch together notes which have the same criteria. The process allows the participants to see what others have written and to think. By writing the notes individually everyone's views are given equal weight. The evaluator then talks through the notes with the participants, seeking clarification as appropriate and the evaluator facilitates the group to agree the top things (Fetterman suggests ten to twenty) which need to happen. These are written up on a flipchart.

Scene Setting for an Empowerment Workshop

Scene setting for the evaluation workshop is crucial. Fetterman suggests that this take place in “an open session with as many staff members and participants as possible.” Fetterman, 2001. East Oxford Action's experience of facilitated workshops such as these are they are best when the numbers are limited to about fifteen. This raises problems for large programmes. Our experience is also that the process of inviting people to the workshop offers an opportunity for control – ie only inviting people who will support your point of view. Whilst all measures are taken to prevent this – through explaining the evaluation process to those doing the invitations – it is also useful to keep an eye open for this during the workshop and perhaps do some follow-up work if appropriate.

An agreement by all those involved to subscribe to openness and mutual respect needs to be established at the beginning – the evaluator making clear that everyone is equal. East Oxford Action has experienced problems with this, for example where cultural barriers prevent one group from speaking in front of another. Another example is that of a project evaluation taken with people with mental health problems, where it was felt that a fully mixed workshop would be too stressful for those involved. In this circumstance we ran a series of workshops with the different groups (if the participants are likely to be intimidated by the process), whilst ensuring that the different groups heard what each other are saying and eventually run a mixed group workshop once trust had been built up. With regeneration programmes made up of several projects delivering different elements of the programme, it is necessary to undertake several workshops looking at the overall aim and the projects' aims.

The choice of time and venue for the evaluation workshop is also important – where possible it should be designed to suit the needs of everyone, but where this is not possible to suit the needs of the most vulnerable in the group.

The stages of an evaluation workshop

East Oxford Action (EOA) , has been carrying out empowerment evaluations for internal projects and for clients for the last three years. During this time we have adapted the approach to the circumstances of British regeneration programmes and project delivery. A team of empowerment evaluators drawn from groups and individuals who have worked with East Oxford Action has been trained.

At East Oxford Action we break the process down into five stages (expanded from Fetterman's three) :

• The first stage of an empowerment evaluation is to establish the aim of the project

• The second stage is to agree criteria for success

• The third stage is to score current performance against the criteria

• The fourth stage is a facilitated discussion around the scoring on the criteria, to get beneath the skin of the scoring

• The fifth stage is to identify actions to address the issues coming out of the workshop and to agree what actions are needed to a) address the issues and b) to evaluate performance.

Coming out of the evaluation workshop therefore are

• Agreement on project aim, criteria for success, ways of measuring success

• Agreement on priorities for future action in the project and evaluation

• A written record of the evaluation workshop.