What is this guide about, who is it for and what does it do?

The Project Manager's Evaluation handbook has been written primarily for managers and other professionals responsible for the development and execution of projects funded by the European Commission. (EC) However, much of the content will be relevant to project managers in general and where there are references to EC specific issues, this is made explicit.

Its purpose is to provide managers both with information about evaluation but also to provide practical guidelines on how to do it or, at least, how to organise it. For this reason, members of evaluation and review committees may also find it useful, as will other project staff who have been asked to take on an internal evaluation role.

The first section explores some of the basic ideas and assumptions underpinning evaluation – what it is, why we do it and who the stakeholders are. The second section introduces a simple model of evaluation and looks at the practicalities of conducting an evaluation. The third section identifies some of the common problems and pitfalls and also highlights particular ethical issues impacting on the evaluation process. Finally, we have included a section in which we have collected together some tools, checklists (and further references), which managers may find useful as a starting point for their own evaluation. We have deliberately not included these in the body of the text as they are designed to be photocopied and reused in a variety of situations.

The key purpose of the handbook is to be a practical ‘manual’ for managers and an entry-level guide for evaluation practitioners rather than a textbook to be read from beginning to end. For that reason it has been designed around stand-alone sections so that users can ‘dip in’ to relevant topics. This inevitably leads to some duplication between sections. It has also been designed to be used in conjunction with the Evaluation Mentor software and follows the same format although both can be used independently.