Discover the insights and outcomes of Three Hive Consulting’s evaluation of their 4-Day Work Week (4DWW) pilot. This article explores the benefits and challenges of the 4DWW, highlighting impacts on work-life balance, productivity, and client relationships, and shares strategies for successful implementation.

Discover how evaluation serves as essential self-care for your program. Just as individuals benefit from reflection and enhancement, our programs thrive with regular evaluation to assess strengths, monitor progress, and promote ongoing improvement. Explore how integrating evaluation into your program’s routine can enhance resilience, streamline operations, and ensure long-term viability.

Discover why asking silly questions can make you a better evaluator. This article reveals how injecting humor and curiosity into evaluation discussions can foster open dialogue, encourage critical thinking, and drive meaningful change.

If you’re an evaluator seeking training that goes beyond the basics, start here!

Early in your career, it can be hard to know what field you want to work in, let alone feel confident in finding a job. If you’re thinking that you might want to become an evaluator, or you’re a newish evaluator looking for a job, read on to see what we, at Three Hive Consulting, look for when hiring.

Ideally, our evaluation projects would proceed as planned. But as all project managers know, sometimes things change. Actually, most of the time, things change! In some situations, our evaluation approach can be modified to adapt to the changing context, but in others, we have to say no to scope creep.

When I hear “we need a dashboard,” what I hear is “we need relatively current information that we can quickly understand and trust, and we want it on one page.” But a dashboard may or may not be the best way to fulfill that need. Here, I’ll clarify what a dashboard is, and what it isn’t, then provide a checklist you can use to decide if your program or organization needs one.

Congratulations, evaluator, you’ve landed a client! Or maybe your organization has selected an evaluator to complete an exciting project. Either way, your next step is a contract for evaluation services. In this post, we list some components you should include, or at least consider, in your evaluation contract.

A good RFP will yield good proposals. Unclear RFPs with overly burdensome submission requirements may drive away highly qualified firms or consultants, and what submissions do come may miss your intended mark. If you’re creating an evaluation RFP, include these elements to get better submissions.

A blank page can intimidate any writer. The same goes for evaluators – that “evaluation questions” column in your evaluation plan may be daunting. Looking at examples of real-world evaluation questions just might inspire your own.

In this post, we describe how Three Hive Consulting supported the evaluation of a home health monitoring project for patients with chronic conditions.

This post explores how we at Three Hive Consulting worked with REACH Edmonton Council and other agencies to evaluate a unique initiative called Bridging Together. You’ll see how they developed and carried out an evaluation plan that yielded actionable information.

On a summer morning, after several attempts to interview clients for an evaluation project, I arrived with a social worker at an overnight shelter. Finally, we had located Jules, who wanted to share her experiences with the program I was learning about. When we approached her and her friends, we noticed that she was sipping from a bottle of vodka.

Sometimes online resources just aren’t enough. Some questions call for discussion, for a second opinion – a coach. That’s why Eval Academy is launching its new evaluation coaching service.

Through developing and delivering evaluation training, we know the value of short guides for translating concepts to practice. That’s why we developed this free resource that helps evaluators reflect on whether and how they are applying the Program Evaluation Standards developed by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation.

Evaluation questions focus data collection. They are what our stakeholders need to answer. When they have the answer to these questions, they can tell their stories. But it can be challenging to write questions at just the right level, that will provide guidance for choosing methods and developing data collection tools, and will actually yield the information to satisfy stakeholders.

In qualitative approaches, we want to describe, to present details and nuances and interesting outliers. But as evaluators, we need to do more than just report what is—we need to comment on what it means. In familiar evaluation terms, moving from the “what” to “so what?”

This framework can help you to consistently “quantify” qualitative findings.

Each evaluation is different. You have different stakeholders, different topics, different timelines and different end goals. Some evaluation plans will be simple, and others more complex. When developing your evaluation plan, you can take a mix and match approach to its composition.

Here are some common components of evaluation plans. Your plan might need just a few, or it may need all of them.

This step-by-step guide is focused on one-on-one 30 minute telephone interviews. However, many of the tips shared can be applied to in person or group interviews, and interviews of differing time lengths and research interests.