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Session Title: Evaluation of Organizations as Enterprises: Approaches, Appropriate Outcome Expectations, and Potential Indicators
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Panel Session 117 to be held in Preston Room on Wednesday, November 7, 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM
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Sponsored by the Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Thomas Chapel,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
tchapel@cdc.gov
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| Abstract:
The ultimate goal of CDC, healthy people in healthy communities through prevention, is realized through joint efforts of CDC, component programs, grantees, and networks of state and local partners that turn national vision into local reality. Increasingly, CDC organizational components - centers, divisions, and programs - are asked to demonstrate how their efforts contribute to the whole. This presents two challenges. First, CDC efforts are often infrastructural, hence removed from frontline outcomes they intend to empower. And second, CDC might interact with autonomous participants to achieve distal outcomes, making its role more about rallying these participants in consistent, common efforts than about achievement of final outcomes.
Three CDC programs will discuss how they approach evaluation of their efforts. In certain cases, this entails identifying and measuring more proximal outcomes; in other cases, the key has been development of a clear logic model that can provide consistency among approaches of autonomous programs and grantees.
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These are the Voyages of Evaluating an Enterprise
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| Michael Schooley,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
mschooley@cdc.gov
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| Rosanne Farris,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
rfarris@cdc.gov
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| Jan Jernigan,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
jjernigan1@cdc.gov
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| Barri Burrus,
RTI International,
barri@rti.org
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| James Hersey,
RTI International,
hersey@rti.org
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| Erika Fulmer,
RTI International,
fulmer@rti.org
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| Jeanette Renaud,
RTI International,
jrenaud@rti.org
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| Alton Dunlap,
RTI International,
adunlap@rti.org
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Are we doing the right things? Are we doing them well? Are we having the intended impact? As 'we' grow in complexity and breadth, it becomes increasingly challenging to develop evaluation plans that answer these questions. Evaluation planning is accepted practice for specific programs and interventions, but not necessarily for organizational entities. At an organizational level, it is challenging to evaluate a portfolio of activities and projects, including various grant programs, data collection activities, research, partnership, and administrative activities. Recognizing the need to answer these questions, the CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, with assistance from RTI International, developed a division-wide evaluation plan. Plan development was informed by an array of stakeholders including CDC leadership and external partners. The presentation provides a description of the evaluation planning methodology and results, including a comprehensive logic model, evaluation priorities, major challenges and lessons learned.
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Evaluating Strategy Execution: Lessons Learned in Implementing Human Capital Management Plans
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| Joan Cioffi,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
jcioffi@cdc.gov
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The most appreciable asset in an organization is its employees. One of CDC's human capital goals is fostering a learning culture that provides opportunities for continuous development and encourages employees to participate. Human capital strategies should be aligned with this goal, related to organizational objectives, and integrated into a strategic plan, performance elements, and budgets. This presentation focuses on the intended short- and midterm outcomes of selected human capital strategies. It will focus on individual learning accounts (ILAs), which provide annual funding for employees to use for individual career development, and on individual development plan (IDPs), which are required for employees to access ILA funds. The presentation will also offer the metrics employed, CDC's performance regarding those metrics, and actions taken to improve performance, highlighting the importance of evaluating plan execution as early as possible in any organizationwide strategy, particularly those related to complex human capital initiatives.
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Planning for Partnerships and Strategic Alliances at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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| Adam Skelton,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
askelton@cdc.gov
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Strategic planning in the public sector is critical to assuring public value. Many planning processes focus on building effective and efficient organizations. This discussion will focus on the implementation of a planning process around partnerships and strategic alliances that was used at the CDC. Critical capacities that must be in place to accomplish organizational objectives were identified. This seemed to fit the unique role that collaboration plays at the CDC as a 'means to an end' rather than the end itself. Planning, evaluation, and organizational performance were understood through;
1) Key planning activities and their relative value
2) A logic model to support the planning process
3) Identification and assurance of the key organizational capabilities leading to organizational success
4) Translating capabilities into operational programs with measurable attributes
5) Planning in large, complex organizations such as the CDC
6) Assuring the necessary development of an evaluation infrastructure and methodology
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