Evaluating Outside the Box

[Scott Chaplowe]

Hello Gender & Evaluation Colleagues -

With a collegial nudge from our dynamic networker/leader, Rittu, I wanted to share with you some recent publications in the timely edition of the Social Innovations Journal on Innovative Practices for Systems Transformations. The issue has 16 articles on topics ranging from how social innovation organizations remain productive and innovative during times of disruption to project evaluation as an expression of colonization imported from the developed north to the global south. Below is the article Adam Hejnowicz and I contributed:

Evaluating Outside the Box: Evaluation’s Transformational Potential

Scott Chaplowe and Adam Hejnowicz

Abstract: The call for transformation is a response to the dire global emergency; it is a call for radical innovation at multiple levels if humanity is to survive into the next Century. How can evaluation, a profession in the business of assessment and advising, inform and hasten transformation? As a field that straddles both theory and practice, evaluation is uniquely positioned to support transformational learning and change, but this potential depends on its ability to transform from within. This article identifies four interrelated “boxes” that confine evaluation’s transformational potential: a project fixation, a short-term temporal fixation, a quantitative fixation, and an accountability fixation. It also examines the uptake and influence of complex systems analysis in the field of evaluation as a means to “breakout” of these boxes and nudge evaluation towards the inner transformation required for it to contribute to transformational change.

Feedback or comments always welcome. One of the tenets of transformational learning and change is that it is iterative and not a "done deal." Hence, my understanding is evolving and the perspectives of feminist, indigenous, and other world- (and individual) views are welcome. 

Scott