Reflect & Evaluate

Overview

The AmbITion approach requires organisations and individuals to undergo a process of continual reflection and evaluation. The various steps in the approach provide natural pauses where this can take place. From initiating a project, through audit and diagnosis, onto developing a business case and through implementation, the toolkit allows ongoing reflection on the nature of your digital development and the impact it will have on your organisation.

This component should be looked at in parallel to the rest of the AmbITion approach, and not just at the end.

Internal Reflection

AmbITion is not just about technology, but how to make a technology project work for your arts organisation.  Therefore there are plenty of opportunities to reflect on this change, and to adapt how you adopt the AmbITion approach based on these reflections.

In each project it is important to involve your whole organisation, even if they are not going to be directly involved in delivery of the project. There are opportunities to do this throughout each AmbITion component and you should look to do so.

For staff and others who are working on the project having some mechanisms for reflecting on the project can be highly beneficial, now and at a later date. As well as “formal” reports on the project progress, “informal” methods, such as blogs, or messages on your intranet, can keep other staff aware of what is going on.

Ensure that the project is not isolated from the rest of your organisation, and is mentioned at team and management meetings on a regular basis.

During the implementation you might want to have a more formal process for measuring progress, for instance through the use of an online project management tool, or a regular reporting mechanism.

Encourage regular presentations about the project to your team and to others. Make one of the outputs of the project a “case study” and give someone the job of  developing this. (It might be a useful task for an intern or a new starter), and use “rich media” such as video as part of it.

External Evaluation

External evaluation is useful if you have the time and resources to do it.

Even if you are not committed to an external evaluation of your project – or it will only take place after it is complete – it is worth considering whether you can involve an external evaluator from an early stage of the project. You may want to ask any consultants who are working you through the approach to undertake some “light touch” evaluation alongside their other work, or you might ask a researcher or other interested party to be attached to the project from the start.

An external evaluation that can report on the project during its progress also gives you an opportunity to deal with any issues that have arisen and make changes accordingly. Don’t think of evaluation as being purely about “outcomes” but also about “process.”

Two interim reports and the final report on AmbITion England: 'Whose AmbITion?', 'Naked AmbITion' and 'Final report on AmbITion Oct 09'

Reviewing the Project

At the end of a project where an organisation has followed the AmbITion approach it is likely we will have a series of useful documents that have been generated at various stages of the project.

These may include ;-

-       an initial risk assessment

-       an audit of the organisation’s current technology

-       a business case

-       an implementation plan

-       regular “highlights report”

-       a final report

Although a funder or a management team will want to know that you have achieved the outcomes of the project, and spent the funding correctly, the AmbITion approach encourages self reflection throughout the project. Ideally, any final report should be more than a formal review of the project, but a vibrant set of resources that can be used to promote your work, and that can inform the development of future projects.

Lessons Learnt

At the end of the project think of “lessons learnt” not in terms of anything that went wrong but in terms of what might help you in the future.

e.g.

Did you create any useful documents or templates that could be used again? For instance, you might have written a job description for someone with digital skills.

What changed on the project that made things better? For instance, a “brainstorming” session, or a visit to a conference might have given people enthusiasm and understanding that they used in the project.

Did you use or see any useful tools? Maybe a visiting artist used a particular video camera, or a piece of software that was useful, or someone set up a useful spreadsheet to manage the project.

How good was your planning? We always meet deadlines when we have to – e.g. the opening of an exhibition – but where the deadlines are self-imposed, such as with a website development, delays often happen. Were our timescales unrealistic? Or did unexpected events delay things.

Did you achieve the outcomes you expected? This is the big one. You should go back to your business case and see what you had hoped to achieve. Were they realistic? Is it too early to tell? Or have you just got so involved with the implementation process, that you’ve forgotten why you wanted to do this in the first place? When a project ends is often when the real work begins.

What’s Next?

You should now be ready to start your next digital project with the confidence that comes from having successfully delivered your previous project. Good luck, and if you’ve a good story to tell, then we’d love to hear about it.