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Session Title: Pass the Aspirin: When Projects Become Headaches
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Panel Session 563 to be held in Avila A on Friday, Nov 4, 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM
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Sponsored by the Evaluation Use TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Mary Anne Sydlik, Western Michigan University, mary.sydlik@wmich.edu
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| Abstract:
Science and Mathematics Program Improvement (SAMPI) at Western Michigan University currently has 25 evaluation projects, seven projects out for review, and six in the early stages of development with potential clients. Members of the SAMPI evaluation team will address challenges that can arise 1) during the pre-submission proposal/project development phase; 2) while trying to coordinate evaluation and project activities with another organization; and 3) when the clients' expectations change mid-course in ways that exceed the evaluation budget, the evaluator's time and energy, and cost-overruns threaten to shut down the evaluation before it can be completed.
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So They Want You to Serve as Evaluators on Their Project?
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| Mary Anne Sydlik, Western Michigan University, mary.sydlik@wmich.edu
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The pre-proposal phase of an evaluation brings to mind the five stages of grief. Denial: Misgivings about the PI, budgetary limitations, hollow sounding promises of providing a quick turnaround regarding goals and a time frame are ignored as you hear yourself agreeing to collaborate. Anger: You want us to do all of that with this budget? Where are those goals and the time frame? Bargaining: Evaluating the project, which sounds quite interesting, might be doable if the PI is willing to increase the budget slightly. Maybe daily calls to the PI will dislodge a rough draft of the goals and a wild guess of the time line in time for firm budget and evaluation plan to be devised. Depression: The proposal will never get submitted. Acceptance: We agreed to serve as evaluators, so we go along with an unrealistic budget and write a quality evaluation plan at the last minute.
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So the Partnerships Have Gone Awry?
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| Kristin Everett, Western Michigan University, kristin.everett@wmich.edu
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This presentation will explore the headaches that occur between program partners and the evaluator's role in fixing broken partnerships. Developing and implementing a program usually requires different groups. Although different organizations and agencies bring expertise to a program, complications can occur with so many viewpoints working on the same project. Issues of power, division of labor, differing measures of success, and lack of communication are some of the problems that a project can find itself in when bringing people together. Sometimes an evaluator finds a project in the midst of a floundering or broken partnership. The evaluator may be required to mediate problems between partners, offer suggestions to improve the partnership, and examine the effectiveness of the partnership. The evaluator's role expands from exploring the effects of the program to also evaluating the effectiveness of the partnership. These issues will be explored during this presentation.
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So Their Expectations Exceed Your Budget and Resources?
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| Robert Ruhf, Western Michigan University, robert.ruhf@wmich.edu
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So you have agreed to serve as evaluators even though there is an unrealistic budget. What do you do now that expectations are exceeding your resources? This presentation will focus on a specific example that SAMPI dealt with. Three things happened with this project that caused SAMPI to exceed its budget: PIs asked us to collect pre-program baseline data (even though this was not in the original proposal), they asked us to add several questions to a pre/post survey that provided interesting information to the PIs but were not useful within the context of the evaluation (which made the surveys exceedingly long, creating an increase in printing and data entry costs), and they allowed twice the number of participants into the program than originally proposed. The presenter will lead attendees in a discussion involving the following two questions: How would you address these issues? How did SAMPI address these issues?
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