1073: Are you ready? Using Foresight to Future-Proof Your Evaluation Practice

The evaluation field, our clients, and program participants are wrestling with fast-paced and disruptive change on several levels–elimination of entire government programs, elimination of funding in the sciences and a shift away from evidence-based learning, and chaos in government and decision-making. Not only will the future continue to be volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) but we have shifted to a crisis-mode to deal with unprecedented change and uncertainty. To successfully meet the moment, we recommend embracing a foresight mindset that anticipates and gets in front of future challenges, feeding that information back into evaluation design, tools, and measures, and strategy. It is no longer enough to rely on the past in evaluation design and implementation–it provides too rosy an outlook that is out of touch with current reality. This entails adding a new set of skills to our evaluation toolbox that have been used for decades in the public and private sector. Futures studies, the discipline, and foresight, a capacity, provides a rigorous and proven set of tools to perceive, make sense of, and act upon ideas and information about the future, strengthening strategy and decision-making. In this Professional Development session, we present and demonstrate foresight constructs and methods that can increase one’s awareness and understanding of the impacts of change and are tools for action in times of extreme change. Participants will work with trends or observable forces for change shaping possible futures as well as with ‘weak signals’ (emerging trends or disruptions) that may significantly impact the future. Second, they will learn how to work with the Futures Wheel to systematically explore the implications of these trends and their roles in shaping a program or policy. Third, participants will work with alternative scenarios to stress-test evaluation designs and recommendations under extreme conditions, as well as develop solutions to improve the ‘fit’ of these designs/recommendations. While we may not be able to prevent the disruptions that are occurring on an hourly basis, we can shift from a reactionary mode to a proactive, structured mode to understanding these disruptions and developing novel solutions and resilient strategies.

Rhonda Schlangen, MA – Principal, Evaluation for Change Makers; Kathleen Sullivan, JD – Principal, Fine Guage Strategy