Surveys

  • Understand what's working and what's not working
  • Assess the criteria you want to evaluate
  • Provide you with data that will point out whether you've met your quality standards

Process

  1. Develop evalutation questions
  2. Define your evaluation indicators
  3. Determind what type of survey to design and questions to ask

Survey question

Survey questions are a more direct interpretation of evaluation questions that are designed to collect data. Evaluations questions ask about the outcomes, impact, and/or effectiveness of your project or program.

Key questions about the outcomes, impact, and/or effectiveness of your project or program, whereas a survey question is designed to collect data, which can help you answer your evaluation questions.

Survey data helps to:

  • Determine if you're achieving your quality goals.
  • Identify where you need to make adjustments.
  • Understand what's working and what's not working.
  • Assess the criteria you want to evaluate.
  • Provide data that will point out whether you've met your quality standards.

Open-ended questions require more than one-word answers, such as yes or no.

  • What went well during the presentation?
  • What did you find most useful or interesting about the presentation?

Close-ended questions can be answered with a single response, like yes or no or true or false or selecting a single answer from a list.

Type 1 (yes/no):

  • Did you order an appetizer?
  • Have you eaten at this restaurant before?

Type 2 (multiple choice): The second type of closed-ended question is multiple choice. You're usually instructed to select one of the answer options or to select all that apply.

  • How often do you dine at this location each month? ** A range of answer options like zero to one, two to three, four to five, and five or more.

Tips

  • Should be specific and address only one measurable aspect.
  • Don´t make assumptions about respondents
  • Don´t provide too much information

Presentation

  • Full report
  • Slides
  • Story telling

Storytelling is the process of turning facts into narrative to communicate something to your audience.

Process for preparing an evaluation presentation:

  • Consider your audience
  • Filter and analyze data
  • Shape the story of your findings.

What to include in your evaluation presentation

Introduction

The introduction serves as a summary of your presentation and includes an overview of the project's goals and desired outcomes. It should include a summary of your findings, lessons learned, and recommendations moving forward. This is a very important section of your presentation, but keep it brief. Your introduction should be no more than a paragraph and only include the most necessary information.

What is being evaluated and why

Here is where you will state the purpose of the evaluation. Remember, in the context of project quality management, the purpose of evaluation is to measure how well your project is meeting the established quality standards. Presenting evaluation findings to your stakeholders shows them how well the project is meeting quality standards and informs them of the project's success. To do this:

State the goal, milestone, or deliverable that is being evaluated and the quality standards that were defined for that aspect of the project.

Include the evaluation questions and indicators that were used to evaluate each quality standard.

Pro tip: Remember, your stakeholders have limited time. When preparing your presentation, only select the most important standards and questions.

Evaluation findings

Now it's time to state your findings. Give each standard its own section within this portion of the presentation, and summarize what the findings mean for each standard. Make a clear judgement about the findings: What did you learn? What can you take away from the data? Tell the story of what the data means for the future of the project and for the stakeholders.

Example: "The data reveals that 36% of users felt their dining experience was negatively impacted by the tablets." It's up to you to synthesize that data and determine why that might be. Maybe it's because the tablet software wasn't installed properly, resulting in glitchy technology. Or maybe it's because the staff wasn't trained effectively, and therefore the ordering process was seriously delayed. Maybe some customers just don't want tablets taking their orders, and they prefer to deal with wait staff. Explain what the data means in a way that allows stakeholders to make decisions or declare this aspect of the project successful or not.

Pro tip: Visualize the data with graphs or charts to quickly convey the message of the findings.

Bar chart wxample: The data reveals that 36% of users felt their dining experience was negatively impacted by the tablets.

Conclusion with recommendations

In your conclusion, state your findings again and propose a couple of recommendations for how to apply the findings to the next phase of the project. You can also outline how these findings may be used in future projects.

How to format your presentation

Slide-based presentations can be created using digital applications like Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. This type of presentation uses images and succinct bullet points to provide the necessary information to stakeholders. Slide-based presentations typically include summarized information rather than lengthy, in-depth paragraphs. They are great tools for high-level presentations, when your stakeholders do not need to know every single project detail.

Additional tips

  • Tailor communications to stakeholders: When it comes to communicating important milestones to stakeholders, consider whom you are presenting to. Tailor your presentation to your audience in a way that they will understand and enjoy.

  • Start with an interesting hook: Begin your presentation with an ice breaker, joke, or an interesting visual aid to get your stakeholders' attention right away.

  • Use visuals throughout your presentation: The use of visuals creates interest and keeps the audience engaged in your presentation.