Draft 1

At the meeting: “Which metrics would we include? Maybe stats about the number of members, number of events held, brown bag topics….?”

Look closely, can you see the small multiples blog post peeking through on the other side of the page? Start with sketching and your life will be 1,000,000 times easier.

Draft 2

Revisiting the initial brainstorming, about a week later: “I’ll need a header section, and a 2-sentence description of the organization, and maybe a list of Board members, and some demographic charts on members, and something about our brown bags and happy hours. And of course we’ll need contact information at the bottom… Okay this seems easy… Is this too easy…? Sketching is always the easiest step, right…?”

Draft 3

“The ‘Who We Are’ section is looking huge. Which topics do I even have data on? And how many charts can I realistically fit in that tiny space? I’d really love to keep this summary to just one page… And how would I actually visualize that stuff under ‘What We Do’ …  hmm … maybe a graphic timeline? … okay I’ll go with that for now…”

Draft 4

“This will be so easy, I’ll just stick these charts and text boxes into a PowerPoint slide so that I have plenty of control over moving the various objects around on the screen… I’ll just set my slide dimensions to a portrait layout… This’ll be printed in black and white and shared online in color PDFs, so I can use some color, but I better stick with a pretty simple color scheme – probably the burgundy from our logo and that’s it. There’s some yellow too, but there’s no way that yellow will show up good when this is photocopied in black and white… Darn copying and pasting charts from Excel into PowerPoint is such a drag, I wish there was some way around it…”

Draft 5

“Oh geez, oh course there’s a shortcut that helps me avoid copying and pasting charts back and forth from Excel into PowerPoint – I’ll just create the entire report inside Excel. Just like I often do… Why didn’t I think of that 20 minutes ago?! … C’mon Ann, maybe you shouldn’t be working on this ‘just for fun’ project at 2am…”

Final Report

Three weeks later, revisiting the Excel-based summary: “Vertical text boxes? What was I thinking?! … And those burgundy boxes around each section… They seemed fine earlier but now they seem way too dark… I want the headers to stick out, so let me increase the font a little and add light gray lines instead of burgundy boxes.”

Want to view the full report? Download the PDF.

Evaluator in the DC area? Join the Washington Evaluators and I for brown bags and socializing in the new year. Thanks for a great 2014!

A few of the million+ decisions your software program can’t make for you:

10. Which chart is best for your data. Yes, I’m well aware of Excel’s Suggested Charts feature. No, don’t even think about it. There’s no substitute for your critical thinking skills.

9. How much ink is necessary. Will your viewers benefit from light gray grid lines, or should you remove them altogether? Ask 10 different people and you’ll get 10 different opinions. You’ll have to think yourself outta this one.

8. How many decimal places are needed. One argument is that decimal places add precision – if you’ve got decimal places, why not display them? Another argument is that our datasets are rarely complete enough, cleaned enough, or generally accurate enough to warrant giving the viewers lots of decimal places (and therefore, a false sense of precision).

7. Whether you’re going to stick with a default color scheme (please, NO) or customize your color palette to match your client’s brand identity.

(And who chose Excel 2013’s color palettes, anyway? Lime green, royal blue, and orange? But that’s an article for another day.)

6. The extent to which you’ll label your data. Do your viewers need to see every point on the line, or just the beginning and end points? Or just the highest line? Or just the lowest line?

5. Whether your chart needs to be rotated to avoid diagonal text. In this scenario the answer is yes! rotate that chart! but your software program won’t automatically do this for you. You’ll have to determine whether your data labels need some additional space, and if so, swap your vertical bar chart for a horizontal bar chart.

4. Whether your viewers need aggregated or disaggregated data. It doesn’t matter how much you paid for your software program. Your computer doesn’t know whether your viewers would benefit from a single visual that contains aggregated information or whether your viewers need to make comparisons across four different variables simultaneously through a small multiples layout. But yes! Your brain! It knows!

3. Whether your viewers will really understand that diverging stacked bar chart, or whether you should just stick to a regular old stacked bar chart.

2. Which patterns to emphasize and which patterns to hide, like whether viewers need to see all the peaks and valleys (line) or whether you need them to focus on just two points in time (slope).

1. And in case it isn’t obvious yet, your audience is pretty darn important. Your software program will never understand your audience’s numeracy level, data visualization level, interests, time limitations, or information needs as well as you.

Ready to dive in and start training your brain to think through these considerations and more? In 48 hours I’m co-leading a public data visualization workshop with THE Stephanie Evergreen in Washington, DC. Upcoming speaking engagements are listed on my calendar.

Want access to the files used in this article? Sign up for my newsletter and I’ll send ‘em your way.

This is made-up data, but I share handouts like these at meetings all the time. The typical reaction: “It’s just so simple!”

What’s the key to this handout’s simplicity?

Secret #1 is that I intentionally made nine separate charts, one chart per series of data (rather than three line charts with three series of data each, like one line chart for indicator #1’s data for Virginia and Texas and California together).

Secret #2 is that I intentionally removed the grid lines. Lots of little charts –> need uncluttered design so that readers’ brains don’t feel cluttered.

Bad Version #1

Here’s what that same handout would’ve looked like with horizontal grid lines:

Score on the “grid lines, if present, are muted” item in our Data Visualization Checklist: 0 of 2 points.

Really Bad Version #2

And that same handout again with vertical grid lines…

It’s like peering at your data through a tennis racket.

Score on the Data Visualization Checklist: 0 of 2 points.

Really Really Bad Version #3

But boy oh boy does it get better.

Here’s the same handout again, but this time the data’s displayed in line charts instead of area charts.

How are stakeholders supposed to make decisions based on data if they can’t even see it?

Score on the Data Visualization Checklist: 0 of 2 points.

Original Version, Plus An Alternative

Phew, what a relief. Here’s that original version again.

Can you see why I removed the grid lines altogether?

Score on the Data Visualization Checklist: 2 of 2 points.

And if your boss/colleague/client isn’t used to grid line-free charts, try something like this.

In this version, I muted the grid lines. Muting means I altered the color—the grid lines are light gray instead of black.

Score on the Data Visualization Checklist: 1 of 2 points.

Small tweaks to formatting, major gains in giving your readers distraction-free data.

Want to explore these Excel files on your own? Sign up for my mailing list and I’ll send you the graphs.

Feel like you’ve exhausted Microsoft Excel’s limited menu of graphing options? Check out my Essential Charts webinar on December 2.

Can you spot the fatal flaw?

See it?

Go check out the x-axis.

Where the heck are Days 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, and 20?

(This is where you gasp.)

Yep, the analyst accidentally skipped a few labels along the x-axis. This is an innocent enough mistake. Most likely, there weren’t any responses to the survey on Days 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, and 20. So the analyst was busy and forgot to manually insert “0’s” for those days in the data table.

This is what Stephanie Evergreen and I described in our Data Visualization Checklist: Axis labels are equidistant means that the spaces between axis intervals should be the same unit, even if every axis interval isn’t labeled.

Here’s what that graph should’ve looked like.

Can you spot the differences now?

The dotted line is the incorrect graph and the solid line is the correct graph.

Our analyst’s error means the readers saw an incorrectly shaped graph.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this same mistake in published research and evaluation reports. The analysts have accidentally skipped days, years, cohorts, and so on. Whoops!

The good news: What an easy fix. Just add new rows or columns to your data table, insert some 0’s, and voila! your graph will have equidistant axis labels.

Coming to Denver for the American Evaluation Association’s annual conference?

• Grab one-on-one data visualization consulting at the Slide Clinic: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 from 8 – 9 pm.
• Attend the Data Visualization and Reporting Topical Interest Group’s meeting: Thursday, October 16, 2014 from 7:15 – 8:45 pm.
• Learn more about data visualization best practices from Stephanie Evergreen and I: Friday, October 17, 2014 from 11 – 11:45 am.
• Learn to produce slidedocs in lieu of dusty shelf reports: Friday, October 17, 2014 from 4:30 – 5:15 pm.

Or, contact me and we’ll grab coffee. 

Not too long ago, a friend was trying to decide whether to continue renting his current apartment or to purchase a similarly-sized condominium.

• Option A: Continue renting current apartment. Approximately $2,000/month, which includes utilities and amenities. Walkable neighborhood with grocery stores, restaurants, and biking trails. Near public transportation options like a metro stop and multiple bus stops.
• Option B: Purchase a condominium. Approximately $1,700/month, thanks to those darn homeowners association dues. Farther from public transportation, which means extra commuting time and potentially extra commuting costs. Comes with the thrill of purchasing a home and the potential for making money when selling it later on.

During our initial conversations, his decision seemed to be mostly financial—will he save money on a monthly basis by buying a condo? Will he save money over the next 5, 10, or 15 years by buying a condo?

Location is also part of the decision. Rush hour’s no joke in DC, so he wants to stay near public transportation to keep his commuting time and commuting costs low.

Finally, flexibility is part of the decision. He’s a computer programmer and his start-up environment can be unstable. Last year, when one of his company’s apps didn’t sell as well as they expected, the company downsized and he was laid off. He found another job almost overnight but knows it’s possible that his new company could downsize at some point. He’s pretty sure he wants to stay in DC, but has also considered moving to San Francisco.

I couldn’t make the decision for him, but I could help him crunch the numbers.

We made this spreadsheet together over a beer. He wanted to compare costs of renting vs. buying over a 10-year period. A few of our acquaintances have had trouble selling their condos so he knew that, if he chose to buy a condo, it would be a long-term living situation. And of course, we factored in rental costs like gym fees and parking fees and homeownership costs like association dues and home repairs.

My friend stares at computer programming languages all day long but he was in hell with this spreadsheet. Data visualization to the rescue! We mapped out his options in this simple line chart…

…and then formatted the chart.

Notable edits:

• We removed the grid lines;
• We removed the legend and directly labeled the end points of each line (i.e., we inserted a text box so that “Continue renting apartment” was right next to its corresponding line);
• We used the muted color + action color strategy to draw attention to Option B (how buying a condo is the cheaper option);
• We added a so what? title;
• We added a 2-line description underneath the title; and
• We drew attention to that magical 4-year milestone where my friend would break even financially—where the cost of buying a condo becomes a cheaper option than renting.

In case it’s useful, here’s the click-by-click revision process in Excel:

And which option did my friend choose? After our conversation, he designed Option C: moving to a slightly smaller and slightly cheaper apartment in his same great neighborhood. He was unpleasantly surprised to see how expensive his apartment really was, but he was also hesitant to buy a condo, and hadn’t previously considered swapping one rental for another. The money he’s now saving on rent will go towards his eventual move to San Francisco. Once he compared the costs, he realized that the flexibility slice of his decision making pie was pretty important.

How are you using data visualization for personal or professional decisions? Share your tips below!

Over the past year or so I’ve been building an online portfolio of speaking and writing engagements.

Before that, I collected paper copies of reports I worked on:

Before

The great sobering thing about portfolios is that you can bask in the glory of your wonderful work bow your head in shame.

Most of these charts from my prior work were ineffective. Of course they were. Data visualization is a new skill for most researchers and evaluators.

One of these charts was so horrific that I just had to share it with you:

What’s so bad? you ask. I see these all the time, you say. Can’t they just tilt their head to read the words, you argue.

Each of these mistakes–from the before I knew better period of my career, never to be revisited again–kept viewers from understanding the information:

• Generic and centered title (Should have a “so what?” and be left-justified.)
• No subtitle or annotations (So the viewer can’t skim the information.)
• Border (Should be removed.)
• Tick marks on vertical and horizontal axes (Unnecessary.)
• Full grid lines (Should be lightened or removed altogether.)
• Legend (Should have direct labeling instead of the legend to avoid those back-and-forth eye movements.)
• Speaking of direct labeling… why did I label the axes and the bars? Overkill.
• Diagonal text (Should swap this vertical bar chart for a horizontal bar chart, leaving more room for the labels.)
• Default color scheme (The client’s logo definitely didn’t contain Excel’s default blues.)
• An action color is there, kind of. Not really. It’s used incorrectly. Our brains are drawn to darker colors. Why was I drawing attention to the “possible items correct” section with the dark blue?
• Most importantly, why did I display the raw scores vs. the percentages? Can you imagine how much mental energy it must’ve taken my viewers to figure out what 2.9 vs. 2.6 vs. 6 means?

Introducing the Data Visualization Checklist

Now I know better. I’ve studied, practiced, gotten trained, and trained others. I want you to learn from my mistakes and go forth and make charts that people actually understand. That’s why Stephanie Evergreen and I published the Data Visualization Checklist earlier this month.

Guess how my old chart scored on the Data Visualization Checklist? 39%. Which means I’m certain that nobody would take the time to understand my poorly-titled, redundantly-labeled, cluttered, confusing chart.

Preview the checklist below. Download it. Avoid the agony. Your viewers will thank you. Maybe they’ll even hire you again.

Remakes

The first phase in learning about data visualization is usually critiquing charts. What, exactly, is wrong with your work or someone else’s? How can you learn from those mistakes? The second phase is articulating specific ideas for how you’d make charts better (Data Visualization Checklist to the rescue!). The third phase is actually remaking your charts. Some people stay in the first phase forever. My goal is to move more people into the third phase: actually improving your work.

So I’ll lead by example. Here’s how I’d re-do this chart today. I designed five different remakes.

Remake #1: A horizontal clustered bar chart

First and foremost, I changed the chart type from a vertical bar chart to a horizontal bar chart. Horizontal bar charts are great when the data labels are pretty long, like in this example. Your goal is to avoid diagonal text at all costs. It’s harder to read, so viewers get distracted, bored, or generally turned off and stop trying to decode your messy chart. I’m not a fan of vertical text either. Not sure how to transform your vertical bar chart into a horizontal bar chart? I’ve got a tutorial.

Next, I transformed the raw scores (“2.6″) into percentages (“43%”).

Finally, I addressed all the Low Hanging Fruit formatting issues. For example, I added a 10-word title and a 1-sentence caption; I deleted the border, grid lines, and tick marks; I placed the percentages on the bars so I could delete the axis; and I placed the years directly on the bars so I could delete the legend.

Why the black and white? Just for fun, I want to show you that you can still emphasize patterns without using bright, showy colors. In real life, would I match the action color to my client’s RGB codes? Absolutely.

What do you think of remake #1?

Remake #2: A stacked bar chart

I’ve experimented plenty with real-life clients to see whether they prefer regular bar charts or stacked bar charts. Here’s the typical response:

• Me: Here’s the first chart. [Regular bar chart.] What’s the message here?
• Client: Oh wow! Our participants are doing so well! 46%! That’s high! … Right? Or is that number low? Out of what? Out of 100%, right? Hmm…
• Me: You’re on the right track. Here’s the second chart. [Stacked bar chart.] What’s the message in this one?
• Client: Oh darn, we’ve got a long way to go. 46 out of 100%?! I need to speak with our program director about this. In fact, our whole team better see this. We need to figure out what we’re doing wrong before it’s too late!

A dozen conversations later, and the result is still the same: Nearly all my clients gain deeper insights about the findings through stacked bar charts instead of regular bar charts. What’s the response in your projects?

Remake #3: A side-by-side bar chart

The first two remakes are better than the original. That being said… clustered bar charts are my least favorite chart in the history of the world. They’re so cluttered. And worse, the comparisons are lost. With so many bars smushed together, it’s nearly impossible to see at-a-glance patterns between the two series of data.

In this example, I created a side-by-side bar chart so viewers could more easily see 1) the 2009 pattern on its own, 2) the 2010 pattern on its own, and 3) the difference between the two. Still in the bar chart family, but different patterns pop out, don’t you think?

I also used the action color (dark gray) to emphasize the Social and Ethical scores, and I added an annotation (the call-out box on the chart) to make my viewer’s comprehension even easier.

Want to make your own side-by-side bar chart? I’ve got a tutorial.

Remake #4: A dot plot

Dot plots are often the superior chart. I use them to compare two points in time (like this example); two distinct groups (Program A and Program B); or, when I triangulate data, two distinct viewpoints (students’ perspectives vs. teachers’ perspectives).

But they’re not always superior. This dot plot doesn’t work. It’s too cluttered, isn’t it? Its more confusing than helpful. It’s because students improved on some areas, declined on other areas, and didn’t change at all on other areas. The annotation isn’t helping, either; instead of adding clarity, it adds clutter.

For the rare viewer who’s willing to spend 60+ seconds interpreting the chart, it’s great because it shows more nuanced patterns than the other charts. But my guess is that the majority of viewers will lose interest after a few seconds because they can’t immediately grasp what it means.

Remake #5: A slope chart

A slope chart is basically a line chart for two or three points in time. This chart type is also effective at showing rankings (i.e., it’s easy to see how the skills are ordered on the left-hand side). Want to make your own slope chart? Download Cole Nussbaumer’s template.

This chart is the winner. It’s easiest to understand at-a-glance. It ranks each of the skills areas. It shows differences over time. There’s a lot of cool stuff going on for the viewer to explore. It’s supplemented with a non-intimidating title, subtitle, and annotation. Yet, the information takes up very little ink and space. The score on our Data Visualization Checklist–98% of the possible points–reflects the strengths of this remake over the others.

How, exactly, did I score myself with our Data Visualization Checklist? Here are my notes. No need to be fancy. Just give it a try.

Which remake would suit your audience best? Have you re-done any of your charts using our Data Visualization Checklist? If so, please contact me. I’d love to see how you’re improving your work.

P.S. Want to learn more about titles, subtitles, and annotations? Go check out Stephanie Evergreen’s post (http://stephanieevergreen.com/how-to-rock-the-text-in-your-data-visualization/) plus other Data Visualization Checklist resources on her blog (stephanieevergreen.com/tag/data-visualization-checklist).

P.P.S. Are you in DC next week? I’m leading an evaluation workshop on June 2 and a data visualization workshop on June 6. No diagonal text, I promise.

Here are some simple strategies for communicating clearly with chart color.

Strategy 1: Select a custom color palette.

Rather than using Excel’s default colors, match your chart to the organization’s logo. (Consultants: Match your client’s logo, not your own.) For my grad school projects, I align everything with my university’s logo.

Does the organization have a super basic color scheme? My grad school’s logo is green and yellow, which doesn’t give me many options to work with. So, I found a similar color palette on design-seeds.com. I used the instant eyedropper to find each color’s RGB code. Now I’ve got six colors to play with instead of just two.

Strategy 2: Figure out if your categories are nominal, sequential, or diverging.

Nominal or categorical variables are things like race/ethnicity (African American, Asian, Latino, White, etc.) or gender (male or female). Think about which pattern you want to emphasize, and use darker action colors to draw attention to that finding.

Sequential or ordinal categories have a natural order, like age ranges (5-9 year olds, 10-14 year olds, and 15-19 year olds) or years (Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3 of an evaluation). Sometimes categories go from less to more or from nothing to something. An example of a nothing to something progression is a satisfaction survey question that asks program participants to assess how likely they are to recommend the program to a friend (not at all likely, somewhat likely, very likely). For these charts, the action color can represent the something and white can represent the nothing:

Divergent categories are opposites, like agree/disagree scales on surveys. An example is a similar satisfaction survey question that asks participants to indicate whether they agree or disagree with the statement “I’d recommend this program to a friend.” When charting divergent variables, you might design a diverging stacked bar chart, as shown below. Select two different colors from your palette, like greens for agreement and yellows for disagreement. The extreme values (strongly agree and strongly disagree) get the darker colors.

(For a deeper discussion of these principles, check out colorbrewer2.org.)

Strategy 3: De-clutter by increasing white space and switching some black text to gray.

Which information is most and least important? Let’s de-clutter by removing or reducing anything without a crucial purpose. We want the reader’s attention focused on our most important patterns.

For example, if you’re using Excel, you might improve upon the default settings by deleting the border, the grid lines, or the tick marks. If you decide to keep the grid lines or tick marks, try adjusting them from black to gray so they fade into the background. You can also remove the legend and put labels within the chart itself (like that first bar chart with race/ethnicity information). Finally, you can outline shapes in white to give the chart a crisper look and feel (like the diverging stacked bar chart shown above).

Do you have additional color tricks to share? Please share your comments below.

Want to create one of these charts? Download my Excel file. Or, want a step-by-step tutorial? Stay tuned: Next week’s dataviz challenge is a diverging stacked bar chart!

Here are the rest of the highlights from the conference. Enjoy!

Ignites

Ignite sessions lit up the conference! Kudos to the 50+ brave evaluators who gave an Ignite presentation. I’m looking forward to watching and re-watching these presentations once they’re posted online.

• 

  Ignite presentations were a blast! Wish I’d been able to see more of the #dataviz presentations at #eval12. FUN conference this year!

  Tracy Wharton

  Sat, Oct 27 2012 18:12:53

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• 

  #eval12 #ignite good: get point across, focus, be creative, learn content very well. Bad: hard 2 curate your knowledge, need entertaining

  Leah Goldstein Moses

  Sat, Oct 27 2012 09:21:40

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• 

  Ignite presentations- aiyo! No question I could talk that fast but could I ever be so succinct? Not likely! #Eval12

  Christie Getman

  Sat, Oct 27 2012 08:26:01

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• 

  Possible ignite panel for #eval13, “Evaluation? What is that?” Anyone interested in contributing? Loved ignite at #eval12! @aeaweb

  usefuleval

  Sat, Oct 27 2012 14:42:40

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• 

  #eval12 benefits of internal eval:: proximity, relationships, chance to experiment, driving agenda, immediate use, seizing opps @AnnKEmery

  Leah Goldstein Moses

  Sat, Oct 27 2012 09:07:43

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• 

  #evalAHA Brian English CHF Int’s Ignite about empowering slum residents to survey 500,000 and use data. How powerful eval can be. #Eval12

  Becca Carsel

  Sat, Oct 27 2012 20:32:08

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For the second year in a row, the Data Visualization and Reporting business meeting was run entirely through Ignite presentations. Best TIG meeting ever?

• 

  At the #dvrtig business meeting, being run as an #ignite session. Don’t miss it. 203 a/b #eval12

  Stephanie Evergreen

  Thu, Oct 25 2012 17:36:15

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• 

  RT @AnnKEmery: Chris Lysy (@clysy) just killed it during his IMPROV ignite session at the #dataviz meeting at #eval12! 20 slides, 5 min, & zero prep time!

  limeygrl

  Thu, Oct 25 2012 19:28:18

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• 

  @clysy way to rock those surprise #ignite slides.

  Stephanie Evergreen

  Thu, Oct 25 2012 18:24:55

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Our dataviz nametags at the Data Visualization and Reporting business meeting

Potent Presentations Initiative

1. Kudos to Stephanie Evergreen for leading #p2i!
2. 

   Noticing #eval12 presentation slides overall are far better than most conferences. Thanks @aeaweb and @evalu8r for #p21 initiative!

   usefuleval

   Fri, Oct 26 2012 14:07:15

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3. 

   Have to wake up in 4 1/2 hours for #eval12 TIG meeting but i can’t stop reading @evalu8r’s #p2i materials! http://p2i.eval.org/index.php/p2i-tools/

   Ann K. Emery

   Thu, Oct 25 2012 22:36:49

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4. 

   @usefuleval Great you can see a difference in quality of #eval12 presentations. Huge kudos to @aeaweb and @evalu8r for #p2i initiative

   Patricia Rogers

   Fri, Oct 26 2012 20:43:40

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5. P.S. Patricia Rogers is one of the friendliest and, ahem, most genuine evaluators you’ll ever meet.

6. Susan Kistler

7. Susan Kistler’s presentations were the talk of the town! What will we do without her?! Have you noticed that her daughter Maddy is a rockstar-in-training?
8. 

   #evalAHA @sukist Susan Kistler should do an entire day! #eval12

   Sydney A. Anderson

   Fri, Oct 26 2012 07:41:23

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9. 

   Susan Kistler is having fun doing demo of free (mostly) tools at #aea12 Slides available in elibrary

   Ray R. Lewis

   Fri, Oct 26 2012 06:27:18

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10. 

    

    @rayrlewis1: My pleasure re pic w/ @sukist. Looking good! Great to meet/tweet you. Thanks for mine too. #eval12 http://pic.twitter.com/H21Iw2hN

    Kathleen Tinworth

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 13:11:25

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11. Local and Regional AEA Affiliates

12. Affiliates rock! Glad to have met Allison Titcomb, Cassandra O’Neill, and Gwen Willems so we can continue talking about future affiliate collaborations. 7am on a Satuday morning, and I’m awake! Representing the Washington Evaluators in my turquoise sweater at the Affiliate Breakfast:

13. 

    

    RT @AllisonTitcomb: #eval12 Affiliate Bkfst. Thx to MN eval & Rodney Hopson (AEA Pres & WPEN affiliate) & 30 members of 16/26 affiliates! http://pic.twitter.com/oM8nbcFf

    Ann K. Emery

    Sun, Oct 28 2012 19:46:41

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14. 

    

    Thx to Frank, Gwen, Leah & John! Sustaining Small Volunteer Orgs: Insights from Local Affiliates. #Eval12 #EvalAHA! http://pic.twitter.com/1dKQzJ1K

    Allison Titcomb

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 14:51:37

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15. Friends from affiliates & beer = good times. Thanks to everyone from the Washington Evaluators, Baltimore Area Evaluators, Eastern Evaluation Research Society, and new NYC affiliate who attended the happy hour #tweetup on Thursday night.
16. 

    Had a blast at #tweetup #eval12! Many thanks to @AnnKEmery for organizing and @jonsachs1 for being Canadian (and charming)!

    limeygrl

    Thu, Oct 25 2012 19:40:17

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17. 

    @limeygrl best compliment ever. Thanks!

    Jon Sachs

    Thu, Oct 25 2012 19:41:31

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18. 

    Love when my favorite evaluators get to meet each other! Here’s Jen Hamilton, Cindy Tananis, and Stephanie Evergreen at the happy hour #tweetup.

    

    Finally got a good picture with David Bernstein at the happy hour #tweetup!

    Innovation Network’s booth

19. Who knew sitting at a booth could bring so many highlights to my conference trip? Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth to say hello, especially Trina Willard and the Westat crew.

20. 

    

    Hello from @Innonet_Eval’ers @wtfenn, @j_morariu, and @KatAthanasiades working the booth at #eval12! Come by to say hi! http://pic.twitter.com/vPypnGLP

    Innovation Network

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 07:08:55

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21. Our State of Evaluation 2012 reports were flying off the table! If you didn’t get a paper copy of the report, please check out www.stateofevaluation.org to download a PDF.

22. 

    

    Met staff from @InnoNet_Eval who gave us some great info about the state of eval report. Link on our FB page! #Eval12 http://pic.twitter.com/btN0WbSt

    CRC

    Thu, Oct 25 2012 08:39:43

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23. 

    The State of Evaluation report from @InnoNet_Eval is BEAUTIFUL. Check out a copy at their #eval12 booth

    Stephanie Evergreen

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 12:53:42

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24. And taking a limo to our team dinner wasn’t bad either…

    

    The Innovation Network and Center for Evaluation Innovation team dinner: Kat Athanasiades, Veena Pankaj, Johanna Morariu, Will Fenn, and past Innonet-er Ehren Reed.

    

    Will’s first limo ride!

    Resources

25. Geez, I missed some great sessions! Thanks to everyone who tweeted tips, tricks, and resources from sessions they attended. Now I know exactly whose slides and handouts to check out later.
26. 

    Fredericks – Great new tool for social network analysis – ORA NetScenes! #eval12

    Rachel Reichenbach

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 12:39:57

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27. 

    Chart chooser #dataviz #eval12 http://www.juiceanalytics.com/

    Anne Schwalbe

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 12:51:26

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28. 

    Get color themes from you logo https://kuler.adobe.com/ #dataviz #eval12

    Anne Schwalbe

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 12:55:43

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29. 

    #eval12 watch for AEA conference interviews on Kylie Hutchinson’s Adventures In Evaluation Podcast airing next week

    June Gothberg

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 13:10:26

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30. Twitter

31. If you can’t already tell from this Storify, Twitter added a little something special to this conference – and even helped me find the owner of this lost & found memory stick! I’m looking forward to seeing the conference evaluation results from Anne Schwalbe and the rest of the University of Minnesota’s team of graduate students.
32. 

    Eval12 on Twitter – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v55ygEVDOEZMpNWkGlYfnGuE21BpIes911_1yPDctFU/edit

    Elissa Schloesser

    Thu, Oct 25 2012 12:31:12

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33. 

    

    Did you lose your Ball State University memory stick at #Eval12?? Found in 200A on Saturday. Please retweet! http://pic.twitter.com/63uFfxOv

    Ann K. Emery

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 09:42:31

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34. #EvalAHA! moments

35. I loved watching lightbulbs go off throughout the conference. Hooray for the #evalAHA hashtag. Brilliant idea.
36. 

    “Balance SMART goals with ones that are more WISE. ” Matt Keene. #eval12 #evalAHA!

    Allison Titcomb

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 11:56:13

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37. 

    my dataviz #evalaha: start with 2 colors, then go from there. Leave the multi-colors to the pros… #eval12

    Katherine Dawes

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 13:23:41

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38. 

    Amen! RT @brinkhus: Reports don’t have to be on paper!?!? What? #eval12

    TerraLuna

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 09:22:15

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39. Chris Lysy and his cartoons

40. Everyone was talking about Chris Lysy’s cartoons. Check out freshspectrum.com for all his drawings.
41. 

    @clysy Your cartoons are “value add” for me to #eval12. Thx for your humor and perspective!

    Allison Titcomb

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 03:41:39

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42. 

    I cannot believe I missed these cartoons of @clysy (and one is of me!). Did you tweet them? Thanks!! http://freshspectrum.com/poster-reception-eval12/ #eval12 #eval

    Pablo Rodriguez B.

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 11:37:53

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43. 

    @clysy they’ve become one of my favorite parts of #eval12!

    Taylor Overstreet

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 15:37:42

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44. Sure, evaluators love getting awards and earning degrees and all that, but our highest honor?? Getting drawn by Chris Lysy.
45. 

    Also feeling part of the cool kids club now that I’m immortalized in a cartoon by @clysy http://freshspectrum.com/poster-reception-eval12/ #eval12

    Stephanie Evergreen

    Thu, Oct 25 2012 13:40:53

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46. 

    @clysy thanks!! You know that you are not somebody until clysy draws you!

    limeygrl

    Fri, Oct 26 2012 19:06:11

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47. Additional LOLs

    Remember when Stephanie Evergreen wrote about how each city has its own branding and font? Then what was Miami’s branding and font doing in my Minneapolis hotel?!

    

    My hotel in Minneapolis

    Remember when Jen Hamilton told us not to worry about forgetting our socks? So naturally Jen and I LOLed when we saw this:

    

    Kathryn Henderson really *did* forget her dress socks. Incredible.

    How many Innovation Network evaluators and smart phones does it take to find the hotel? (More importantly, why were all the streets numbered in Minneapolis? 4th street AND 4th avenue?)

    

    Will Fenn, Veena Pankaj, and I finding our way in Minneapolis

    Relationships, Responsibilities, and Relevance

48. The conference theme really hit home during the closing ceremony on Saturday afternoon.
49. 

    Spirit is in the room. It’s moving and wonderful. #eval12

    Nora Murphy

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 15:14:40

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50. 

    @aeaweb #eval12 #evalAHA Reflecting on AEA 2012. It filled me up-heart & mind. Im blessed by colleague outreach n friends. #feelingthelove

    NBPC1

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 13:20:23

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51. 

    #eval12 Looking at life with wonder…favorite take home reminder from closing session. #evalAHA!

    Allison Titcomb

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 14:53:30

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52. 

    #eval12 #evalAHA AEA saves the best for last! Closing ceremony values complexity and validates our field.

    June Gothberg

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 15:00:53

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53. All around good vibes

54. There were some good vibes at this conference – a sense of community, support, and general we-like-eachother-ness.
55. 

    My #evalaha it’s not about networking, it’s about building deep personal relationships with people you both respect and like #eval12

    Chris Lysy

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 13:40:12

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56. 

    AEA’s also about renewing existing relationships–& in some cases its about mourning the loss of cherished ones formed in years past #eval12

    David Larwin

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 18:13:15

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57. 

    My #evalaha from #eval12: It’s all about relationships, which are formed by building trust by sharing stories.

    Lija Greenseid

    Sun, Oct 28 2012 07:32:52

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58. 

    On final day of #eval12, feeling deep gratitude for generous and knowledgable members of our field and their willingness to share #evalaha

    TerraLuna

    Sat, Oct 27 2012 06:49:57

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59. Congrats again to Agata Jose-Ivanina, who had her second daugher just after the conference!
60. 

    Congrats to my favorite evaluator & best friend @AgataJI who had her baby this morning!! (Pretty awesome reason to miss #eval12 last week!)

    Ann K. Emery

    Tue, Oct 30 2012 07:55:36

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Wednesday, October 24

• Lunch with the lovely Jen Hamilton.
• Dinner with the Innovation Network team.

Thursday, October 25

• 11 – 11:45 am: The Innovation Network booth – come visit!
• 2:40 – 4:10 pm: Giving a 5-minute Ignite presentation, Top 10 Benefits of Connecting With Your AEA Affiliate in Room 103E.
• 5 – 7pm: Coordinating a happy hour for east-coast AEA affiliates. Join the Washington Evaluators, Eastern Evaluation Research Society, Baltimore Area Evaluators, and new NYC affiliate for a beer at Brit’s Pub, just a block or two from the Convention Center.
• 7:15 – 8:45 pm: Laughing at Chris Lysy’s improv Ignite session during the Data Visualization and Reporting business meeting.

Friday, October 26

• 7 – 7:50 am: Getting feedback on the [draft!] evaluation use survey for my master’s thesis during the Evaluation Use business meeting in Room 211 C/D.
• 11 – 11:45 am: The Innovation Network booth – come visit!
• 2:40 – 4:10 pm: Sharing insights about internal evaluation and performance management during a roundtable discussion: Our Seven-Year Journey to Create and Maintain a Culture of Learning and Evaluation in a Multi-service Nonprofit Organization. Join the conversation in Room 204B.

Saturday, October 27

• 7 – 8 am: Representing the Washington Evaluators at the Affiliate Breakfast.
• 10:45 – 11:30 am: Chairing an Ignite session titled Ignite Your Relationships: Ignite Presentations Focusing on Stakeholders, Collaboration, and Roles. Presenting a 5-minute Ignite presentation called Why I Love Being an Internal Evaluator. Join me in Room 200A.
• 11:50 am – 12:50 pm: Helping Cindy Tananis with a brown bag idea exchange titled Expanding Relationships, Complex Responsibilities, and Increased Relevance: Where are the Boundaries of Evaluation Practice in a Fuzzy World?
• I’m visiting relatives after the conference, so I’ll be around all afternoon and evening on Saturday. Late lunch, afternoon coffee, dinner, or drinks? (All of the above?)

Patrick Germain

Hi evaluators!  My name is Patrick Germain and I am the Director of Program Evaluation and Quality Assurance at Project Renewal, and the Founder and Director of Performance Management Professionals, a community of practice based in New York City on issues of Performance Measurement and Management and Evaluation.

Organizations are rife with politics, and politics is often the decisive factor in whether evaluations get used. This is the first of three blog posts on how I navigate and influence organizational politics to ensure that evaluation is appropriately supported and used in decision making.  

Week One: Managing Your Evaluation Reputation

When I started this job, I knew that my presence was likely to elicit wary skepticism from program staff – if not outright hostility. So I worked to position myself within the organization to avoid power struggles as much as possible:

Step 1: I clarified my role.

I worked with my team to define our department’s mission, and then broadcasted it as widely and frequently as possible:

Our role is to enhance the agency’s ability to achieve its mission by developing and facilitating processes and systems that measurably improve the quality and effectiveness of our services and operations, and to support agency leadership in managing towards high performance.

By framing my role as one of an internal consultant whose primary goal was to support the agency’s leadership, I was saying that I was there to help them achieve their goals, not just to question everything they were doing.

Step 2: I talked the talk – Now I had to prove it!

I set out to establish relevancy, credibility, and integrity:

• The leadership’s priorities were my priorities – I got the right information to the right people at the right time, and in the right format.
• I made sure that whatever I did was accurate, clear, and actionable.
• I followed through with what I said, and stuck to my guns when I was asked to bend the rules ‘just this once.’

Step 3: I became a problem solver.

One of my least favorite sayings is “It is what it is.” I want to yell out: “But that isn’t what it has to be!”  I began to cast myself as the ever-optimistic champion of change, and made sure to get some easy wins under my belt. Anything I could do to solve a problem, I did, no matter how small. We got a faster internet connection, we got the boxes taken out of the back bathroom, we convinced our funder to change their targets, we got carrots for our meetings instead of cookies, we changed the printer defaults to do double sided printing. And on and on. Not only did this win me allies, but people started to understand that we had the power to change the status quo.

Now, people knew that my goal was to help them achieve their goals and that I was trustworthy. They knew that I could help them figure out solutions to their problems and that I was able to achieve results. While none of this was directly about evaluation, these efforts positioned me so that by the time I got around to my evaluations being used, I had created an environment in which I was more likely to be listened to and trusted.

What has worked for you? What strategies have you used position yourself in your organization?

– Patrick Germain

P.S. Want to learn more? Look for me at the American Evaluation Association conference in Minneapolis next month, where I will be presenting on some of these issues.