Developing Key Evaluation Questions (KEQs)
This method guides teams in formulating Key Evaluation Questions (KEQs) to focus evaluation efforts and ensure relevance. It helps align evaluation activities with program goals and stakeholder needs, leading to more useful and actionable findings.
Use this method at the beginning of an evaluation planning process to define the scope and focus of the evaluation, ensuring that the evaluation addresses the most important aspects of the program or intervention.
Solves: Unclear evaluation focus, lack of stakeholder alignment on evaluation priorities, collection of irrelevant data.
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Step 1: Identify stakeholders and their interests (15 min).
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Step 2: Brainstorm potential evaluation questions based on program goals, intended uses, and evaluative criteria (30 min).
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Step 3: Review and refine the questions, ensuring they are relevant, useful, and feasible to answer (30 min).
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Step 4: Prioritize the questions, selecting the 5-7 most important KEQs (30 min).
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Step 5: Document the agreed-upon KEQs and share them with all stakeholders (15 min).
- Encourage diverse perspectives during brainstorming.
- Help the group balance the breadth and depth of the questions.
- Ensure the questions are specific enough to guide data collection but broad enough to allow for flexibility.
- Use a voting system to prioritize questions.
- Categorize questions by type (process, outcome, economic).
- Develop more specific sub-questions under each KEQ.