Great evaluation doesn’t start during execution or after execution. The key to evaluation is not in the time spent reviewing your organization or event. The key to evaluation is vision.
One of the number one reasons why we struggle with evaluation is not our lack of note taking or our poor memory. The reason we struggle is that we lack vision. If you don’t know what it’s supposed to look like, if you don’t know what the win looks like, you will never evaluate well. You have nothing to evaluate against. We understand this in certain areas of life but we fail to bring it into others. For example, I’m currently in the process of building a fort for my sons in my back yard. When you’re building something structurally you understand the importance of vision. You understand that you need a detailed plan to work off of something to evaluate against in the building process. The same is true with your organization and projects. In both there are essential steps that you need to implement over and over. I’ll use the fort as an example.
This applies to both organizations and events but it can be seen clearly with an event or task. Here are things that will drastically improve your evaluation.
You have to see it.
Before every event I plan or execute, before every talk I give, before every next step in our church, I spend a significant amount of time seeing it. My staff usually thinks I’m crazy but I will sit for significant amounts of time with my eyes closed walking through the event we’re planning. I’m experiencing the event before it ever becomes a reality. I’m not just planning, I’m experiencing. I’m seeing. I do this with our church as well. I imagine being part of one of our groups. How do I want it to feel? Why? How do I feel when I sign up? How do I feel when I’m contacted? How do I feel when I walk in? What is contributing to this? How am I greeted? What expectations are there? How does it look? What should I expect to see? What shouldn’t I expect to see?
It takes time but this is where great evaluation begins. It’s here that you are crafting creating. You are shaping the expectation and internalizing it. By the time you actually walk into a gathering or interact with an actual person you should have already experienced that moment several times. You have a vision for that moment for that event for your organization.
It takes a tremendous amount of time but it will drastically cut down on evaluation time. You won’t have to spend hours determining what went right or what went wrong. You won’t have to have meeting after meeting determining your weaknesses, you’ll know the moment you experience something that doesn’t fit. You know because it’s not what you’re used to. It’s not what you’ve envisioned.
You have to plan the details.
As you form the vision the tendency is generally experience your event or organization. This is a huge mistake. You have to push through to the details. Don’t just have a general idea of what the event will feel like, get down to the details. What will it feel like exactly? When people interact with your church what will their feelings be exactly and why? What color are the table cloths? Where is the sign supposed to be? What is the exact outcome? Push yourself and your team to envision the details.
You have to put it on paper.
You won’t remember everything. Put it on paper. Write out the details. Write out the feelings. Write out the process. Don’t plan without a piece of paper or a computer in front of you and write it all down. You’re not going to be doing this alone. You need your team members to know as well.
You have to communicate it constantly.
Don’t keep it to yourself. You won’t be able to be at every group. You won’t be able to be at every meeting or event. Communicate the vision over and over. Share what you wrote down and have your team walk through it with you.
Evaluate against the vision.
Now you have something solid to evaluate against. Your team can now come together and very quickly and easily point out where you failed to meet the expectation. You may realize that you were wrong about some of your expectations and plans but now you can learn from it rather than simply going a new direction or making a different choice.
Christopherhigh.com 