We All are Europe - AESAEC

Unit 7.3.
Unit in a nutshell
Achievements
Monitoring and evaluation
Basic understanding of workflow circles in project management
Identification of objects, methods, instruments and stakeholders of
evaluation
Reasons for and benefits derived from evaluation
Introduction of evaluation instruments
After this unit you will be able to:
identify and select relevant objects for evaluation
consider interests and needs of stakeholders and experts involved in
evaluation processes
design a draft evaluation plan
use selected instruments of project management evaluation.
There are no facts, only interpretations. (Friedrich Nitzsche)
Warming up
When speaking about monitoring and evaluation, one might think of complex
experimental set-ups in scientific processes. However, our daily life is full of
more or less intended, deliberate and professional evaluation processes. What
kinds of evaluation processes can you identify in your daily life and how do
you benefit from them
7.3.1. Project circle and objectives of evaluation
Listen / Read / Discuss / Exercise
ACT
CHECK
PLAN
DO
On the left you see the PDCA circle introduced by William
Edwards Deming, an American pioneer in quality management.
It is one of the mostly used concepts to describe the
periodical development circle in project management. Please
find out yourself, by using additional sources, what the PDCA
circle is about in detail and discuss whether or not you agree
that development processes follow this structure.
Following the assumption of the PDCA concept, project management needs to continuously undergo
a wide range of evaluation processes, which help to improve the quality of its results and to guarantee
a general successfully project implementation. Therefore, evaluation is an integral and compulsory
element in most EU projects – and the EC rarely approves an application or a project report
without sufficient proof of an appropriate quality management system being implemented.
To establish an appropriate evaluation concept it is important to realise that there are many objectives
within a project that can be evaluated. The table below gives a rough overview (please note
that most objects cannot be allocated selectively, e.g. a project meeting could be listed in all four
classes).
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