What is it about?

As an evaluator, have you ever felt scared of leading a meeting because of the differences of in views and opinions? Or as a facilitator, have you felt frustrated with the weak (or poor or inadequate) attempts to evaluate your work? This issue offers insights and tools to help these two professions communicate better and learn from each other. It will help evaluators build their facilitation skills, not by focusing on specific activities but by showing how to plan for and adapt to the complex circumstances that might arise while you are doing an activity. It also will offer insights to facilitators who want to learn more about evaluation.

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Why is it important?

These days, high-stakes conversations with a variety of perspectives are frequent, especially for program evaluators. Many books list activities you can use to engage stakeholders, but few explain how to adapt your planning for your specific audience, stage of the evaluation, or varying circumstances. Facilitation is much more than the activity, it is learning to be responsive to specific inputs in specific moments. That responsiveness will make the difference between a good meeting and a transformative one. If you aren't comfortable facilitating sessions, your work can easily be sabotaged by conflict or dullness. Learning to adapt tools and techniques can help your work come alive and be truly transformative for the group you are working with. For facilitators, having your work evaluated may feel like fitting a square peg in a round hole. Articles in this issue offer some insights on how to evaluate processes more organically.

Perspectives