MQP Vlogs on YouTube

I have started a daily video blog on YouTube! Subscribe to my channel to get notified of new videos. Here are a few of my latest Vlogs:

Announcing the 5th Edition of Utilization-Focused Evaluation

We are so excited to announce that the 5th Edition of Utilization-Focused Evaluation will be available from Sage in November 2021. This intergenerational effort offers Michael's distinctive opinions based on more than forty years of experience, coupled with the perspectives and contributions Charmagne as co-author. We begin by describing the essence of utilization-focused evaluation, and then outline 10 operating principles. The book concludes with chapters focused on how evaluation can be used to promote a more thoughtful, equitable, and sustainable world. As always, we have peppered the book with examples, figures, and cartoons to capture of those brand new to evaluation and those who have been at it for decades. At its core, we hope to have provided a resource on how to design and conduct evaluations that provide useful findings, and which contribute to a more equitable society.

We invite you to join us at our virtual book launch celebration on November 17th. Click here for more information and to register.

MQP Comfort Music for the Pandemic

Each week, Michaal is offering a new song to help us get through this pandemic crisis with a little comfort, levity and wisdom. You can find links to all of the songs here:

Eval4Action Marathon of Engagement Launch, June 9, 2020

Sunrise, Sunset, Evaluation Equity and Justice, June 1, 2020

Evaluation Warriors Tribute, May 25, 2020

Evaluation as Jazz, May 8, 2020

Being an Evaluator, May 1, 2020

We Are the World, April 24, 2020

We Will Evaluate, April 10, 2020

April Fool’s Day Tribute, April 1, 2020

Speaking Truth to Power, March 27, 2020

Subscribe to Michael’s YouTube channel to get notified of other songs!

Evaluation implications of the coronavirus global health pandemic emergency

I've been doing evaluations and writing about the evaluation profession for nearly 50 years. For the last decade, I've been writing about evaluation under conditions of complexity (Developmental Evaluation) and global systems transformations (Blue Marble Evaluation). I've been getting queries from colleagues young and old, novice evaluators and long-time practitioners, asking how I'm making sense of the global health emergency and what I think the implications may be for evaluation. For what it's worth, here's my take on where we are and what it means.

By Michael Quinn Patton

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

1. Adapt evaluation plans and designs now. All evaluators must now become developmental evaluators, capable of adapting to complex dynamics systems, preparing for the unknown, for uncertainties, turbulence, lack of control, nonlinearities, and for emergence of the unexpected. This is the current context around the world in general and this is the world in which evaluation will exist for the foreseeable future.

2. Be proactive. Don't wait and don't think this is going to pass quickly. Connect with those who have commissioned your evaluations, those stakeholders with whom you're working to implement your evaluations, and those to whom you expect to be reporting and start making adjustments and contingency plans.  Don't wait for them to contact you. Evaluation is the last thing on the minds of people who aren't evaluators. They won't be thinking about how the crisis affects evaluations. That's your job as an evaluator. Get to work doing that job. Adjustments need to be made now, sooner rather than later. Offer help in updating your evaluation. This doesn’t necessarily mean delaying data collection. It may mean accelerating it to get up-to-date information about the effects of the crisis. For example, a planned survey of parent involvement in schools becomes a quick survey about how families are adjusting to school closures.

3. Make it about use not about you. The job of the people you work with is not to comfort you or help you as an evaluator. Your job is to help them, to let them know that you are prepared to be agile and responsive, and you do so by adapting your evaluation to these changed conditions. This may include pushing to keep evaluations from being neglected or abandoned by showing the ongoing relevance of evaluative thinking and findings – which means adapting to ensure the ongoing relevance and utility of evaluative thinking and findings.  For example, in an international project with many field locations, instead of continuing to administer a routine quartering monitoring survey, to be more useful we’ve created a short open-ended survey about how people are being affected and adapting at the local level, and what they need now from headquarters.    

4. Real-time data rules. Channel your sense of urgency into thinking pragmatically and creatively about what data you can gather quickly and provide to your evaluation users to help them know what's happening, what's emerging, how needs are changing, and consider options going forward. At the same time help them document the changes in implementation they are making as a result of the crisis -- and the implications and results of those changes.  You may be able to gather data and provide feedback about perceptions of the crisis and its implications, finding out how much those affected are on the same page in terms of message and response. That's what developmental evaluators do. (See #1 above.)  

5. Consider the “good enough” standard of rigor.  Detach from rigor as an absolute methodological standard. Rigor serves use and puts us solidly in the situation of doing what pioneering evaluator Peter Rossi called “good enough” evaluations. Decisions are being made quickly. Some data to support those decisions when they are made is better than data that are too little and too late. This places “rigor” in the context of crisis conditions, acknowledging uncertainty, emergence and urgency.  For example, a smaller purposeful sample of interviews with a few diverse program staff and participants may be done more quickly, and be more useful, than developing and administering a full survey.

6. Everything changes in a crisis. Embrace change, don't resist it. Program goals may appropriately change. Measures of effectiveness may change. Target populations may change. Implementation protocols may change. Outcome measures may change. This means that evaluation designs, data collection, reporting timelines, and criteria will and should change. Intended uses and even intended users may change. Expect change. Facilitate change. Document changes and their implications. That’s your job in a crisis, not to go on in a comfortable business-as-usual mindset. There is no business-as-usual now. And if you don’t see program adaptation, consider pushing for it by presenting options and introducing scenario thinking at a program level. Take risks, as appropriate, in dealing with and helping others deal with what’s unfolding.

7. Engage in systems thinking. If you have been putting off bringing systems thinking to your evaluations, now is the time. If you've already been bringing systems thinking to your work, now is the time to go deeper and demonstrate to those you work with the relevance and importance of thinking systemically about what is happening. Public health, community health, national health, global health, your family's health, and your personal health are all connected. This is micro to macro, and macro to micro, systems thinking. The state of public health is connected to the economy, the financial system, politics at every level, social well-being, cultural perspectives, educational inequities, social and economic disparities, public policy decisions, and evaluation. Practice seeing the interconnections and their implications for your work, your evaluations, and your life. Celebrate the initiatives of young people worldwide to build a more sustainable and equitable future.

8. Think globally, act locally. Zoom out to understand the big picture of what's happening globally and zoom in to the implications locally, where locally means whatever level you're working at. We all know that context matters for every evaluation, but what is involved in contextual assessment has now expanded to a global level. Use this crisis to hone your evaluative thinking skills to understand how global patterns and trends intersect with and affect what happens locally, including in your own evaluations at whatever level you are operating. Context matters. The whole world is now part of our evaluation context. The Global South and Global North will be intertwined as the global health emergency deepens and broadens.

9. Prepare to make the case for evaluation’s value. Expect proposals to cutback evaluation funding.  Reduced evaluation demand and declining evaluation resources will flow from this crisis. Evaluation budgets, units, and personnel have always been vulnerable in times of crisis. One of the first targets for budget cuts in recessions and political turmoil have historically been evaluations. The economic ripple effects won't show up for a few months, but they will manifest, be sure of that. Economic recession is a certainty. The way that government money is currently being poured into the economy is not sustainable and will lead to major cutbacks down the road. Those cutbacks may target and hit evaluation hard. Prepare by working now to make evaluation all the more useful and real-time data essential so that the evaluation value proposition reframes evaluation as an essential activity not as a mundane bureaucratic or luxurious function when times are good. Define, conceptualize, articulate, and demonstrate the essential utility of evaluation. Lay the groundwork now, not when the cutbacks are announced. Your future as an evaluator and the future of the evaluation profession depends now more than ever on demonstrating evaluation’s cost-beneficial utility: our capability of demonstrating value for money based on evaluation use and in the process-use of applying adaptive, and crisis-informed inquiry frameworks and complexity-informed recommendations.

10. Be knowledgeable, be a fact checker.  Trustworthy, valid, and useful information is at a premium in crisis. Misinformation, bad data, truly fake news, false rumors, distorted statistics, lies, and well-meaning but wrong interpretations are rampant, dangerous, and can cost lives. We are all, as evaluators, knowledge workers. We bear societal responsibility to serve the public good. This means staying informed, being a fact checker, and helping ensure that facts trump ideology and politics. This goes beyond conducting any singular evaluation to our collective responsibility to society as knowledge workers and evaluation scientists. Play that role and identify yourself as an evaluator when doing so. After a speech I gave as the Coronavirus was first emerging, the sound technician came up to me and asked if I knew that the virus came from a Chinese secret chemical weapons facility built on an ancient civilization where they were mining vicious microbes. I invited him to sit with me for a minute and took him to a site that debunked that story to his satisfaction.

11. Model systematic evaluative thinking. The media are filled to overflowing with opinions about what’s working and not working, what’s been done well and poorly, and who’s to blame and who gets credit. Everyone is an evaluator. But we are professional, systematic evaluators. Evaluate for yourself -- with skill, care, and thoughtfulness -- what’s working and not working to mitigate the crisis. Be prepared to render judgments as appropriate based on cumulative evidence, but also be prepared to demonstrate evaluative thinking when evidence is inadequate, when judgments are premature, and when the facts are uncertain. Refrain from expressing uninformed or premature judgments, and urge others to do likewise.   

12. Advocate for better data. Reports of the incidence and prevalence of the Coronavirus appear to be problematic in many cases.  Ongoing systematic stratified random sample testing will be needed to establish population infection rates.  Understand the strengths and weaknesses of the epidemiological statistics. Here’s one example of the statistical debate (read both the article and comments.)

13. Spotlight the need for global, longer term sustainability transformation.  The global health emergency is a short-term crisis within the larger and longer-term global climate emergency. This health crisis has revealed both the importance and possibility of systems transformation. This crisis illuminates the scale, scope, and urgency of systems transformations needed worldwide to create a more sustainable and equitable future. This pandemic is reflecting the fragmented and fragile nature of current systems, inadequate for a just and equitable world. As your work adapts to the current reality, think about how you can bring this larger perspective to bear in your work, to be attentive to gather evidence for, and support the kinds of transformations that may be needed after the pandemic subsides. Balancing long-term threats to the future of humanity with the urgent demands of short-term, crisis-generated interventions demands in-depth transformative evaluative thinking. Evaluators need to be prepared to contribute to finding and following pathways and trajectories toward transformations for a more sustainable future.  

14. Keep learning.  Stay on top of developments in diverse fields that can inform theories of change and transformation. And return to classic sources of knowledge and wisdom. My own source of distraction and renewal is philosophy of science. I offer these reflections from a stance of what philosophers of science call epistemic humility. If social distancing and/or quarantine has given you time for philosophic reflection, check out perspectives on epistemic humility, knowledge, wisdom, and rationality at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

15. Support each other as an evaluation community. Buddy up. Stay connected to other evaluators. Participate actively in our professional networks and associations. We are a global community. Despite differences in approaches, varied methodological preferences, diverse inquiry priorities, and debates about preferred criteria and standards, we share a commitment to evidence-based decision-making, evaluative thinking, and using evaluation to make a better world. That’s our niche, and it’s a critical one. Tough times are ahead. Let's stay connected. Let's support each other. What we do matters. Stay healthy. Stay strong. Stay sane. Stay active in our global evaluation community. Think about what contributions you can make, as an evaluator, to mitigate the crisis. And, especially, support EvalYouth, the future of our profession.

Acknowledgements

• My thanks to Blue Marble Evaluation team members and colleagues Lija Greenseid, Glenn Page, Pablo Vidueira, and Charmagne Campbell-Patton for feedback and suggestions on a draft version of these reflections.

• Illustrations are by Australian Simon Kneebone, Australian Evaluation Society 2017 conference on Evaluating Transformation and from the book Blue Marble Evaluation.

Michael Recognized as Guilford Press Author of the Month for Blue Marble Evaluation

Michael Quinn Patton was recognized by Guilford Press, the publisher of Blue Marble Evaluation: Premises and Principles, as the December 2019 author of the month. In his interview, Michael shares,

"Blue Marble refers to the iconic image of the Earth from space without borders or boundaries, a whole Earth perspective. Many people, organizations, and networks are working to ensure that the future is more sustainable and equitable. Blue Marble evaluators enter the fray by helping design such efforts, provide ongoing feedback for adaptation and enhanced impact, and examine the long-term effectiveness of such interventions and initiatives.

"We humans are using our planet’s resources in ways that are unsustainable. Interconnected global crises demand action and evaluation, such as accelerating climate change; the pollution and deterioration of oceans, lands, and air; species extinction; and, growing inequities and economic turbulence. Solving these crises calls for each of us to contribute to solutions in whatever realms of engagement we inhabit.

Visit the Guilford website to read the full interview with Michael about why he wrote the book and what ideas he hopes it will advance.

Transforming Evaluation to Evaluation Transformation - Blue Marble Operating Principles 9-12

Leading up to the launch of Michael’s new book, Blue Marble Evaluation: Premises and Principles, we shared one Blue Marble Evaluation principles each week. We got through twelve of the sixteen principles, which you can read here. The final four principles all relate to the concept of transformation, so we have grouped them together. Here are the final four operating principles for Blue Marble Evaluation:

• Theory of Transformation Principle: Design, implement and evaluate transformation based on an evidence-supported theory of transformation.

• Transformation Fidelity Principle: Ensure that what is called transformation constitutes transformation.

• Transformational Alignment Principle: Transform evaluation to evaluate transformation.

• Evaluation as Intervention Principle: Integrate and network evaluations to inform and energize transformation.

With the launch of the Blue Marble Evaluation book, we have also created a website that will host Blue Marble Evaluation going forward. We invite you to visit https://bluemarbleeval.org/ to learn more about all of the Blue Marble Evaluation Principles and to join the growing network of Blue Marble Evaluators.

Blue Marble Operating Principle 8: Skin in the Game

Principle: Acknowledge and act on your stake in how the Anthropocene unfolds.

Premise: When it comes to the survival of humanity and the planet, we all have skin in the game, we and our loved ones are in the world that is under threat. We are not outside looking in. We are part of the global system and, there’s a good chance that we are each, in our own way, part of the problem. This gives us a quite different stance than is typically expected. Evaluators are virtually always outside the programs or projects they evaluate. Acknowledging and facing the realities of the Anthropocene transforms the stance of evaluators from external observers of change to internal participants in change.

Implications:

• A shift in evaluator stance from independence to interdependence.

• Making the evaluators’ values explicit and transparent.

• Identifying your stake, whatever role you play – evaluator, designer, implementer, funder, commissioner of evaluations, intended user, policy maker – then sharing how you view your stake and the implications of that view for how you engage and fulfill your role. As a utilization-focused evaluator, we always have a stake in whether and how an evaluation is used.

• Reality-test for yourself to be valuable as a reality-tester for others. So, how good are you at reality-testing for yourself? For example, to what extent are you practicing in your life the things you know you ought to be doing (exercise, eating right, getting enough sleep…)?

Photo Credit: Ellen Harasimowicz

Blue Marble Evaluation Operating Principle 7: World Savvy Principle

World Savvy Principle: Engage in ongoing learning relevant to Blue Marble principles and practices.

Premise: Being a World Savvy evaluator requires a blend of competencies, knowledge, understandings, skills, and sensitivities. Blue Marble evaluators should be globally and cross-culturally competent as well as competent evaluators and knowledgeable about human and ecosystem interdependencies and stewardship. What competence means and what competencies are valued will vary by context.

Implications:

• Be thoughtful about what you know, don’t know, and need to know; what skills you have, don’t have, and need to development; and your strengths and weaknesses to engage as a Blue Marble evaluator.

• Be intentional and systematic about ongoing learning; have a learning agenda while also being open to emergent learning opportunities.

• Develop capabilities to engage as part of a Blue Marble team since no individual is likely to possess the full range of knowledge, skills, and competencies to engage globally, GLOCALY, and across silos in diverse contexts on varied initiatives and interventions.

• Be a creative methods bricoleur, astute in matching methods to situations.

• Be savvy about being World Savvy.

• Being World Savvy is a journey not a destination.

This principle was inspired by our work with World Savvy, an organization focused on empowering educators to make school inclusive, relevant, and engaging for all students, inspiring them to learn, work, and thrive as responsible global citizens.

Blue Marble Evaluation Operating Principle 6: Bricolage Methods Principle

Bricolage Methods Principle: Conduct utilization-focused evaluations incorporating Blue Marble principles to match methods to the evaluation situation.

Premise: The variety of possible Blue marble evaluation situations is so vast that no predetermined set will be adequate. There can be no Blue Marble methods toolbox, a popular metaphor for evaluators offering a limited and definitive set of “tools.” Context matters in designing evaluations. Intended purposes and uses matter, as does identifying and working with primary intended users. Standardization is anathema; customization and contextualization rule.

Implications:

• Blue Marble bricoleur teams will likely be needed to access a variety of possible methods, measures, analytical approaches, and methodological specializations.

• Newer technologies like Big Data, GIS, remote sensing, artificial intelligence (AI), social systems network mapping techniques, and blockchain innovations will likely have Blue Marble evaluation applications.

• Blue Marble evaluation designs may be emergent and adaptive given the diversity of worldwide situations and applications and the dynamic nature of the global environment.

• Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods will likely be needed to do justice to the complexity and multi-dimensional nature of Blue Marble evaluations.

• The GLOCAL principle means that Blue Marble analysis will include national data disaggregated within countries and global data aggregated and synthesized across countries.

• The time is of the essence principle guides evaluation bricoleurs toward longitudinal designs that can capture and assess trajectories toward sustainability and transformation over time.

• Blue Marble evaluations must be utilization-focused.

Photo credit Ellen Harasimowicz

Blue Marble Evaluation Operating Principle 5: Yinyang

Each week, leading up to the Blue Marble Evaluation book and website launch, we will be introducing a new principle of Blue Marble Evaluation. The first four weeks introduced the four overarching principles. This week we turn to the fifth of twelve operating principles. Click here to learn about the difference.

Principle: Harmonize conceptual opposites.

Premise: We live in a divided world. What is striking about the iconic Blue Marble photo from space is its wholeness. No nation-state divisions. No sector silos. No local-global boundaries. The image is neither long-term nor short-term, but now. Blue Marble evaluation aims for that wholeness of perspective as a guide to wholeness of understanding to inform holistic action. To achieve that sense of wholeness necessitates seeing and engaging with different perspectives, harmonizing opposites, integrating divisions, transcending boundaries, and overcoming polarities.

Implications:

• How you harmonize depends on circumstance, the nature of polarities you are encountering, the depth and degree of opposition, and myriad other factors.

• The yin-yang operating principle provides specific guidance for adhering to and applying the overarching Blue Marble Integration Principle: Integrate the Blue Marble principles in the design, engagement with, and evaluation of systems change and transformation initiatives.

• The yin-yang principle is a philosophical mindset not a procedural technique; it provides conceptual guidance for harmonizing opposites as appropriate and useful, but is not a rule that all opposites must be harmonized.

• Design and evaluation are not intrinsic opposites, but are typically treated as separate and sequential. The Blue marble perspective of wholeness and integration applies to design and evaluation.

Blue Marble Evaluation Operating Principle 4: Time Being of the Essence

Each week, leading up to the Blue Marble Evaluation book and website launch, we will be introducing a new principle of Blue Marble Evaluation. The first four weeks introduced the four overarching principles. This week we turn to the fourth of twelve operating principles. Click here to learn about the difference.

Principle: Act with a sense of urgency in the present, support adaptive sustainability long-term, grounding both in understanding the past.

Premise: Understanding the past provides a perspective on present realities and future possibilities. Future scenarios include both doomsday and utopian possibilities. Evaluative thinking applied to the present can be joined with futuristic thinking to illuminate forward-looking patterns and trajectories. Monitoring how interventions and initiatives unfold can inform adaptations along the way.

Implications:

The Blue Marble Evaluation approach to time reframes traditional evaluation thinking as follows:

1. beyond project and program time boundaries to a global ecological sustainability timeframe;

2. from a static (continuity) to a dynamic (resilience) approach to sustainability;

3. from short-term to long-term thinking; and

4. from past time (Holocene) complacency to real-time (Anthropocene) urgency.

Implications for design include:

1. Design interventions to accomplish shorter-term results while enhancing capacity for long-term resilient sustainability of the intervention through ongoing adaptation.

2. Design initiatives with attention to how larger systems dynamics, both human and environmental systems, will affect the development and adaptation of the intervention over time.

3. Design interventions to contribute to global planetary sustainability.

4. Include in the intervention design expected and evaluable milestones of resilient sustainability progress?

Evaluation Questions:

To what extent and in what ways does an initiative systemically address the relationship between shorter-term results and longer-term resilient sustainability?

How are larger system dynamics, both human and environmental, tracked to support initiative adaptations over time?

To what extent, in what ways, and within what timeframe does a particular initiative contribute to global planetary sustainability?

How and when are evaluation activities and reporting timed to ensure timeliness?

Blue Marble Evaluation Operating Principle 3: Cross Silos

Each week, leading up to the Blue Marble Evaluation book and website launch, we will be introducing a new principle of Blue Marble Evaluation. The first four weeks introduced the four overarching principles. This week we turn to the third of twelve operating principles. Click here to learn about the difference.

Principle: Engage across sectors and issues for systems change.

Basic Premise: Problems are embedded in systems. To target the problem without changing the system of which it is a part is to provide only a partial solution and one unlikely to endure. Moreover, problems are often intertwined. Interconnected problems within and across systems require systems change strategies to have lasting impact. Solving problems piecemeal leads to piecemeal solutions.

Implications:

• Changing systems is different from implementing projects. Evaluating systems change is different from evaluating projects and programs. Programs and projects are based on a linear logic of causality. Evaluation of programs and projects follows that linear thinking.

• Systems consist of interdependent elements interconnected in such a way that a change in one element changes connections with other elements and, reverberating through the set of system interconnections, may change the system. Tracking those changes for evaluation purposes requires mapping methods and ways of capturing changes in system interconnections and their dynamics.

• Systems thinking applies to situation analysis, intervention design, engagement, implementation, adaptations, and developmental evaluation.

• Cross-silos design and evaluation tackles multiple issues at once and likely requires a Blue marble team with diverse knowledge specializations and interdisciplinary capabilities.

Photo Credit: Leaflet [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Contribute to the next edition of Utilization-Focused Evaluation

We are writing a 5th edition of Utilization-Focused Evaluation (U-FE) and seek your input. We welcome any of the following sent directly to us:

1. 1A U-FE example to share.

2. A question or questions about U-FE you'd like to have answered.

3. A U-FE experience you'd be willing to share (positive or negative)

4. A critique, cautionary tale, or concern you have about U-FE

5. Anything at all you'd like us to consider for the revision

E-mail your responses by September 15th to Charmagne.

History of U-FE:

• 1st edition, 1978

• 2nd ed., 1986

• 3rd ed., 1997.

• 4th ed., 2008

• Essentials of U-FE, 2012

• 5th ed., forthcoming 2020

Blue Marble Evaluation Operating Principle 2: GLOCAL

Each week, leading up to the Blue Marble Evaluation book and website launch, we will be introducing a new principle of Blue Marble Evaluation. The first four weeks introduced the four overarching principles. This week we turn to the second of twelve operating principles. Click here to learn about the difference.

Principle: Integrate complex interconnections across levels.

Basic Premise: Global systems change must be contextually sensitive and grounded in the interactions between local and global processes and scales of change. The term that has emerged to capture this way of thinking is GLOCAL, or glocalization.

Implications: When designing an intervention or initiative, look at the interactions, interdependencies, and interconnections across levels (micro, meso, macro). Take into account how people, information, and resources flow from local to global, and global to local.

Evaluation Questions:

• In what ways is an initiative or intervention truly GLOCAL? In both processes and results?

• What are the interactions, interdependencies, and interconnections across levels? How do they intersect for mutually reinforcing systems change? Look for both anticipated and unanticipated interactions, both positive (mutually reinforcing) and negative (disjointed and nonaligned).

Photo Credit: Ellen Harasimowicz

Blue Marble Evaluation Operating Principle 1: Transboundary Engagement

Each week, leading up to the Blue Marble Evaluation book and website launch, we will be introducing a new principle of Blue Marble Evaluation. The first four weeks introduced the four overarching principles This week, we turn to the first of the twelve operating principles. Click here to learn about the difference.

Principle: Act at a global scale.

Basic Premise: To address global problems, look beyond nation-state borders and boundaries to affect transnational, regional, and global patterns, interactions, and dynamics.

Implications: The design, implementation and evaluation of a global initiative should be global. This does not mean operating in a few different countries, but operating across countries and taking into account the global and local contexts.

Suggested Evaluation Question: To what extent and in what ways is an initiative or intervention acting at a truly global scale.

Blue Marble Evaluation Principle 4: Overarching Integration

Each week, leading up to the Blue Marble Evaluation book and website launch, we will be introducing a new principle of Blue Marble Evaluation. We will start with the four overarching principles. This week, Principle 4: Overarching Integration.

Principle: Integrate the Blue Marble principles in the design, engagement with, and evaluation of systems change and transformation initiative.

Basic Premise: Transformation requires multiple interventions and actions on many fronts undertaken by diverse but interconnected actors.

Implications: This fourth principle integrates the previous three, making it clear that this is not a pick and-choose menu of options but rather an integrated and comprehensive approach in which all the principles are important and, together, constitute a complete package. As we proceed in subsequent weeks to introduce and explain the 12 operating principles, the Integration principle will apply to those as well.

Photo Credit: Ellen Harasimowicz