Evaluation and Facilitation New Directions for Evaluation, Number 149

Join the conversation between evaluation and facilitation. This issue explores the interplay between the two and how one practice can inform the other. The authors represent both the evaluation and facilitation fields, describing underlying concepts that inform their practices, the competencies they seek to develop, the choices they make about facilitation in the work they do, and how they gauge success. This issue brings together topics meant to stimulate the curiosity of evaluators and facilitators and encourage reflection on their work and the skills needed to carry it out.

This is the 149th issue in the New Directions for Evaluation series from Jossey-Bass. It is an official publication of the American Evaluation Association.

Alissa Schwartz, MSW, PhD, is an independent organizational consultant with a practice in participatory facilitation, program evaluation, leadership development, and strategy planning.

Dawn Hanson Smart is an independent consultant focused on collaboration and participatory work in evaluation, strategic planning, organizational development and capacity-building with nonprofits, foundations and local and state government.

1. Facilitating Evaluation to Lead Meaningful Change 19
Tessie Tzavaras Catsambas

A discussion of traditional evaluation education and the facilitation tools and techniques that can enhance the effectiveness and use of an evaluation.

2. Enhancing Facilitation Skills: Dancing with Dynamic Tensions 31
Rita Sinorita Fierro

A review of information to help evaluators improve their facilitation skills in managing dynamic tensions—the opposite tendencies that coexist in group interactions.

3. MA¯ RAMATANGA (Enlightenment): A Creative Approach to Connecting Facilitation and Evaluation 43
Kataraina Pipi

A personal narrative from an indigenous practitioner who uses creative facilitation methods as part of her evaluation work with indigenous people in Aotearoa (New Zealand).

4. Planning and Facilitating Working Sessions with Evaluation Stakeholders 53
Rosalie T. Torres

An outline of 15 planning components of working sessions that can take place during evaluations, what may influence decisions about these components, and the facilitation issues to consider in each.

5. Facilitating Interactive Evaluation Practice: Engaging Stakeholders Constructively 67
Laurie Stevahn, Jean A. King

An introduction to interactive evaluation practice (IEP) for grounding and guiding decisions, actions, and reflection and applying an “evaluator’s dozen” of strategies useful for facilitating interaction among stakeholders.

6. Data Placemats: A Facilitative Technique Designed to Enhance Stakeholder Understanding of Data 81
Veena Pankaj, Ann K. Emery

An explanation of how evaluators can facilitate stakeholder meetings and gain feedback on evaluation findings using one-page visual summaries of data findings.

7. Evaluating Participatory Facilitated Conversations within the Art of Hosting Framework 95
Alissa Schwartz

An overview of many of the conversational structures used in the Art of Hosting community and a suggested framework for making decisions about evaluating participatory conversations.

8. Invisible and Unbound? The Challenge and Practice of Evaluating Embedded Facilitation 107
Jessica Dart, Megan Roberts

A description of the evaluation of the facilitation of Australia’s Landcare programs, a 15-year effort placing government-funded facilitators into a resource management intervention.

INDEX 121

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