Pretending
Show me the Change
Complexity and the Art of Evaluation – Reporting Sheet
Topic: Pretending
Leader: Johnnie Moore (johnnie@johnniemoore.com)
Participants: Andrew Rixon, Keren Winterford, David Williamson, Julie Harris, Candyce Presland, Natalie Moxham, Felicity Thomas, Jonathan Russell, Adrienne Fanning, Vera Lubczenico, Murray Irwin
Key Points:
• We agreed that a lot of pretending goes on around evaluations. It ranges from quietly allowing people to misinterpret evidence when it suits, through being economical with the truth, to pretending project criteria are useful when they aren’t.
• Evaluation can create pressure to put on a performance and concealing unintended consequences or failures sometimes feels necessary – but results in considerable waste and lost opportunities to learn
• Creating more informed management relationships supports greater ??, as does negotiating longer term funding. We found not easy solutions – but it may be good to start to at least acknowledge a serious problem exists.
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