Evaluation as a Strategy by Judith A. Hale, PhD, Certified ...

Evaluation as a Strategy
by Judith A. Hale, PhD, Certified Performance Technologist
A strategy is an overall game plan for how to use resources to achieve some larger goal. When
evaluation is a strategy, validating what is required, what is in place, and what should be
improved are no longer add on activities, but a fundamental way of operating.
A plan is a detailed program of actions for achieving an end. Plans require resources to make
them real. A strategy is a scheme for how you will employ resources to carry out the plan.
Training should have an annual plan detailing what it wants to accomplish, the resources
required, and strategies for how to use those resources. When evaluation is one of the strategies,
you legitimize asking questions and gathering data about who you service, what you offer, and
why, because everything you do requires and consumes resources.
Evaluating helps you get data about what resources you have, how they are currently used, and
what they produce. The strategy will focus your and the organization’s attention on being factbased,
and being purposeful in how you use resources. The strategy can be applied to measuring
your department's operations, image, market position, and customers’ satisfaction so you are in a
better position to know if more or different resources are required. You can measure the
effectiveness of some or all of your programs, processes, people, equipment, capital assets,
media, and materials. In the end, you should have better information to make decisions about
what you do, why, what it takes, and how to improve. Making evaluation a strategy will help you:
• Identify what customers to service and how.
• Decide what the relationship should be with customers.
• Manage your product portfolio.
• Select and make better use of vendors, contractors, and consultants.
Training organizations support the launch of programs only to see those programs disappear,
perhaps fade away. Some programs are only intended to serve short-term needs. However,
others are meant to institutionalize new behaviors or processes, that is, change the way people
do their jobs. When this is the case, a number of assumptions come into play about what will
remain the same and what might change. Change can erode a program’s integrity and when this
happens the investment made to create it may be lost. When evaluation is a strategy you are in a
better position to discuss assumptions about the future that might support or undermine a
program’s effectiveness.

There is an old adage that says, “What you measure is what you get.” This holds true for training
as well. When evaluation becomes a strategy, not just a by-product of how the function gets
funded, then measurement results in data that leads to better business decisions. When
evaluation is a strategy, it forces you to validate that what you do and how you do it actually adds
value. It changes the nature of the conversation you have with colleagues, clients, and
contractors.
Note: Excerpted from Performance-Based Evaluation: Tools and Techniques to Measure
Training’s Effectiveness, (2002) Jossey-Bass, by Judith Hale, with permission of the author.
Judith Hale, PhD, CPT is the author of nine books on evaluation and performance improvement
consulting. She has been a consultant to management in the public and private sectors for over
25 years. She specializes in needs assessments, certification programs, evaluation protocols,
and the implementation of major interventions. She is a past president of ISPI and the current
director of ISPI's certification the CPT. Judith was awarded a BA from Ohio State University, a
MA from Miami University, and a PhD from Purdue University.