What are the best practices for using evidence to support your program?

As a program manager, you need to use evidence to support your program's goals, strategies, and outcomes. Evidence can help you demonstrate the value and impact of your program, identify areas for improvement, and inform your decision-making. But how do you use evidence effectively and efficiently? Here are some best practices for using evidence to support your program.

1 Define your evidence needs

Before you collect or analyze any data, you need to define your evidence needs. What are the key questions you want to answer about your program? What are the indicators and metrics that will measure your progress and performance? What are the sources and methods of data collection that will provide reliable and relevant information? By defining your evidence needs, you can focus on the data that matters and avoid wasting time and resources on irrelevant or low-quality data.

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Jacob Coleman

Technology & Cybersecurity Expert | Securing Digital Infrastructure | Building Scalable Solutions for Enterprises
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It’s crucial to first determine the outcome we aim to achieve. Identifying the right questions, metrics, and indicators is key to ensuring our efforts align with our goals. As we progress, it’s equally important to continuously assess if our metrics genuinely drive the desired outcomes. How we measure impacts the work performed, as teams naturally optimize efforts around these metrics. It’s vital to embrace honest metrics. If they indicate a need to adjust our objectives or evaluation methods, we shouldn’t penalize the team. Instead, view it as a valuable insight for refining our strategies.

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Sudhanshu Giri

Senior Program Manager | Strategic program leader in cross-functional collaboration, data-driven decision making & stakeholder management | Scaling programs & driving business growth through operational excellence
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1. Ask the Right Questions: Start by figuring out the specific things you want to know about how well the program is working. This helps focus on gathering the right kind of info. 2. Pick the Best Measurements: Find those exact things that show how well the program is doing and use them to track progress, making sure they match what the program is trying to achieve. 3. Trustworthy Data Gathering: Use methods to collect info that you can rely on—ones that give accurate and useful details to make smart decisions. 4. Smart Use of Resources: By figuring out what info you really need, you make sure you're not wasting time or resources on stuff that won't really help the program move forward.

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2 Use a mix of evidence types

Evidence can come in different forms, such as quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods. Quantitative evidence uses numbers and statistics to measure and compare variables, such as outputs, outcomes, or costs. Qualitative evidence uses words and narratives to explore and understand experiences, perspectives, or contexts, such as feedback, stories, or case studies. Mixed methods evidence combines both quantitative and qualitative approaches to provide a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of your program. By using a mix of evidence types, you can capture the complexity and diversity of your program and address different aspects of your evidence needs.

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3 Apply evidence standards

Evidence standards are criteria or guidelines that help you assess the quality and credibility of your evidence. They can include aspects such as validity, reliability, accuracy, transparency, and ethics. By applying evidence standards, you can ensure that your evidence is trustworthy and robust, and that it follows ethical principles and best practices. You can also use evidence standards to communicate and justify your evidence to your stakeholders, such as funders, partners, or beneficiaries.

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4 Synthesize and visualize your evidence

Synthesizing and visualizing your evidence means summarizing and presenting your evidence in a clear and accessible way. Synthesizing your evidence involves identifying the main findings, themes, or patterns from your data, and linking them to your evidence needs and program objectives. Visualizing your evidence involves using graphs, charts, tables, or other formats to display your data in a visually appealing and informative way. By synthesizing and visualizing your evidence, you can highlight the key messages and insights from your evidence and make them easy to understand and use.

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5 Use your evidence for action

Applying your evidence to inform and improve your program is essential. This could include reporting and communicating your program's results and impact to stakeholders, learning from your program's strengths and weaknesses, adapting and adjusting the design, implementation, or evaluation based on your evidence, and advocating for policy or practice changes. All of these steps will help you demonstrate the value of your evidence and make your program more effective and sustainable.

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Sudhanshu Giri

Senior Program Manager | Strategic program leader in cross-functional collaboration, data-driven decision making & stakeholder management | Scaling programs & driving business growth through operational excellence
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Using evidence effectively is crucial for improving programs. Sharing the program's results with stakeholders helps everyone see the good it's doing. Understanding what the program does well and where it can do better helps make it stronger. It's like learning from mistakes and successes. When we rely on evidence, we can make changes to how the program works to make it even better. This might mean changing how things are done or suggesting new rules based on what the evidence tells us. When we talk about the great things the program achieves because of evidence, it gets support and lasts longer. By using evidence smartly, we not only prove how good the program is but also keep making it better.

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6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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What are the best practices for using evidence to support your program?

1

2

3

4

5

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1 Define your evidence needs

2 Use a mix of evidence types

3 Apply evidence standards

4 Synthesize and visualize your evidence

5 Use your evidence for action

6 Here’s what else to consider

Program Management

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What are the best practices for using evidence to support your program?

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 Define your evidence needs

2 Use a mix of evidence types

3 Apply evidence standards

4 Synthesize and visualize your evidence

5 Use your evidence for action

6 Here’s what else to consider

Program Management

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