Developmental evaluation (DE) offers a powerful approach to monitoring and supporting social innovations by working in partnership with program decision makers. In this book, eminent authority Michael Quinn Patton shows how to conduct evaluations within a DE framework. Patton draws on insights about complex dynamic systems, uncertainty, nonlinearity, and emergence. He illustrates how DE can be used for a range of purposes: ongoing program development, adapting effective principles of practice to local contexts, generating innovations and taking them to scale, and facilitating rapid response in crisis situations. Students and practicing evaluators will appreciate the book's extensive case examples and stories, cartoons, clear writing style, "closer look" sidebars, and summary tables. Provided is essential guidance for making evaluations useful, practical, and credible in support of social change.
See also Developmental Evaluation Exemplars, edited by Michael Quinn Patton, Kate McKegg, and Nan Wehipeihana, which presents 12 in-depth case studies.
Developmental Evaluation : Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use
Description
Table of Contents
- Developmental Evaluation Defined and Positioned
The Distinction Emerges
Facing Complexity and Facing Reality: Or, Facing the Realities of Complexity
Developmental Evaluation and Complexity Theory
Developmental Evaluation and Single-Loop versus Double-Loop Learning
The Importance of Interpretive Frameworks
Developmental Evaluation as Utilization-Focused
Charting the Developmental Journey: Overview of the Book
Five Developmental Evaluation Purposes and Uses
2. Developmental Evaluation as a Distinct Purpose and Niche
Beyond Planning: Jumping into the Fire
Evaluation Questions under These Different Engagement Scenarios
Vision Encounters Reality: The Territory of Developmental Evaluation
Systems Issues: Boundary Management as a Developmental Evaluation Focus
Developing Innovations versus Improving and Testing Models: Developmental Evaluation Distinguished from Formative and Summative Evaluation
Ongoing Development Informed by Developmental Evaluation
Strategic Thinking and Developmental Evaluation
The Niche of Developmental Evaluation: Chapter Overview and Summary
3. Thinking Outside Evaluation's Boxes
Creative Evaluation
Of Plums and Prunes
History and Biography as Context: The Personal Factor
More History and Biography as Context
Fundamental Principles
Developmental Evaluation in Context
External Evaluators and Developmental Evaluation
Ten Key Points about Developmental Evaluation Illustrated by the Caribbean Example
4. Situation Recognition and Responsiveness: Distinguishing Simple, Complicated, and Complex
Detecting Patterns
Detecting Complexity as a Distinct Pattern and Territory for Inquiry
The Challenges of Situation Recognition
A Situation Recognition Heuristic: Distinguishing Simple, Complicated, and Complex
Situational Evaluation: Implications for Practice
Variations on a Theme: The Cynefin Framework
5. Systems Thinking and Complexity Concepts for Developmental Evaluation
From Train Brakeman to Locomotive Engineer to Evaluation Champion
Project SleepBetter
Systems Thinking
Complexities of Complexity
Useful Complexity Constructs for Developmental Evaluation
Complexity-Sensitizing Concepts
6. How the World Is Changed: A Dialectic with Thesis and Antithesis and Developmental Evaluation as the Synthesis
Competing Perspectives on How the World Is Changed
The Top-Down Approach
Adaptation versus Replication: Principles for Developmental Evaluation
Best Practices versus Effective Principles
From the Grass Roots to the Adaptive Middle
Alternative Approaches to Change
Developmental Evaluation: The Action in the Muddled Middle
Looking Back and Looking Forward
Appendix 6.1. Positioning and Contrasting Developmental Evaluation with Other Evaluation Approaches
7. The Adaptive Cycle and Developmental Evaluation
Some Context for Understanding the Adaptive Cycle: Poetry, Ecology, Sociology, Business, and Evaluation
The Complexity Doorframe Redux
Five Developmental Evaluation Purposes and Uses
Resilience and Developmental Evaluation
A Strategic Approach to Resilience: Engineering Resilience versus Ecosystem Resilience
The Adaptive Cycle
The Adaptive Cycle and Psychosocial Regimes
Evaluation and the Adaptive Cycle
Through the Looking Glass of the Adaptive Cycle: Examples of Organizational and Program Cycles
Transitions and Traps
Taking an Innovation to Scale: Challenges and Traps in Cross-Scale Change
Panarchy: Cross-Scale Interactions
Panarchy-Informed Evaluation: The Fact of a Doorframe
8. Developmental Evaluation Inquiry Frameworks
Frameworks for Developmental Evaluation Inquiry
Developmental Evaluation Inquiry Frameworks: Ten and Counting . . .
9. Developmental Evaluation Bricolage: Reflective Practice, Sensitizing Concepts, Action Research, Abduction, Systems Change, and Retrospective Developmental Evaluation
Reflective Practice for Developmental Evaluation Inquiry and Engagement
Sensitizing Concepts as a Focus for Reflective Practice and Developmental Evaluation
Kia ora
Action Research and Developmental Evaluation
Intersections of Developmental Evaluation and Action Research: A Distinguished Evaluation Pioneer Reflects
Reasoning and Developmental Evaluation
In Praise of Methodological Diversity and Appropriateness: A Methods and Tools Rant
Systems Change and Developmental Evaluation
Retrospective Developmental Evaluation
Damiano's Retrospective Developmental Evaluation
Developmental Evaluation Bricolage
10. Utilization-Focused Developmental Evaluation: Engagement Practices, Diverse Designs, and Adaptive Methods
Different Kinds of Developmental Evaluation
Diversity of Design and Methods Options
Utilization-Focused Developmental Evaluation
Ten Utilization-Focused Developmental Evaluation Design Examples
Developmental Evaluation Engagement, Design, and Methods Summary
*The First Developmental Evaluation: A Creation Story
Author Description
Michael Quinn Patton is an independent organizational development and program evaluation consultant. A former President of the American Evaluation Association (AEA), he teaches regularly in AEA's professional development workshops, The Evaluators' Institute, and The World Bank's International Program in Development Evaluation Training. Dr. Patton is a recipient of the Myrdal Award for Outstanding Contributions to Useful and Practical Evaluation Practice from the Evaluation Research Society and the Lazarsfeld Award for Lifelong Contributions to Evaluation Theory from the AEA.