This course runs from November 6 - 7, from 10:00am - 5:00pm (EST) daily.
Developmental Evaluation (DE) supports those involved in social change innovation by guiding adaptation to emergent and dynamic realities in complex environments. Innovations can take the form of new projects, programs, products, organizational changes, policy reforms, and system interventions. The field of evaluation already has a rich variety of contrasting models, competing purposes, alternatives methods, and divergent techniques that can be applied to projects and organizational innovations that vary in scope, comprehensiveness, and complexity. The challenge, then, is to match evaluation to the nature of the initiative being evaluated. This means that we need to have options beyond the traditional approaches when faced with systems change dynamics and complex change initiatives. Participants will learn the unique niche of developmental evaluation, different kinds of DE, and what perspectives such as Systems Thinking and Complex Nonlinear Dynamics can offer in applying DE.