PROJECT MANAGEMENT SERIES: PART 5 – THE IMPORTANCE OF FEEDBACK AND EVALUATION IN SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS

You’ve made it, your project has come to an end (along with this 5-part blog series) and you’re pondering what happens now. Well, there are things you should do at the end of every project:

• Evaluation – making a judgement about the impact, values and outcomes of the project.
• Feedback – either gaining information from stakeholders about their reaction to the project or giving information about a person’s performance, which is then used as the basis for improvement.
• Celebration – taking time with the team and / or stakeholders to mark the end of a project. This builds morale and creates closure.
• Handover – some projects may be passed on to other people. E.g. if you designed a new system you may teach people how to use it.

Before diving into the detail on the two actions you should take at the end of each project that you’re going to be exploring through this blog post – feedback and evaluation – if you haven’t read the previous 4 instalments of this series, you’ll benefit greatly from working your way through them in order. Head to the main blog repository to access parts 1-4.

EVALUATING YOUR PROJECT

The purpose of evaluating your project is:

• to know whether goals and objectives were met
• to identify any best practice to be shared with others, or repeated in future projects
• to identify changes or amendments for future projects

Most evaluations are done by asking, and then reporting on, a series of questions. Identifying the questions that you should address will depend on your context. Things to consider in planning your evaluation include:

The scale of your project

Delivering a one-day workshop will require less detail than a full year programme.

Are you evaluating for others?

Sometimes you need to report to stakeholders, investors or the wider public. This may inform the questions you ask, based on what they need to hear.

The need for independence

Some projects require evaluation by an independent assessor, especially if there is a chance of bias or recognised standards which need to be met.

Will you be repeating the project?

If so, you will want to focus on data that allows you to improve it the next time around.

Some useful project evaluation questions:

1. What progress did we make against our plan?
2. How do team members feel about the results?
3. How do stakeholders feel about the results?
4. What went well? What could have been better?
5. Resource use, time spent, people’s roles, plan generation / implementation.
6. What was the impact of the project?
7. What were the lessons learned?

EVALUATING A PERSON

It is important that each person in your project team has some sense of how they performed in order to:

• Hold people accountable to the role they play and the commitments they made.
• Celebrate and reinforce good practice and performance.
• Educate and support people on areas for development.
• Value the career development journey.
• Follow HR procedures, especially those around managing performance.

Useful evaluation questions:

1. Did they meet the goals set?
2. How much has their performance improved?
3. What is the quality of their work?
4. Are they on time / on budget?
5. How well do they work with others? With stakeholders?
6. What is their style of working? How does this affect performance?

GAINING STAKEHOLDER FEEDBACK

Most projects, campaigns and services involve stakeholders. It is important to gain their opinions at different stages of the process:

• Before – to gather ideas or support, to seek funding.
• During – to be democratic, participatory and engaging. To demonstrate accountability.
• After – to know whether a project met stakeholder needs and to demonstrate accountability.

To gain this feedback you could use:

• Questionnaires and surveys
• Rating, voting and reactions
• Interviews
• Discussion groups
• Hustings / Panels
• Feedback games in more informal or dynamic environments

GIVING FEEDBACK

This helps team members to improve and develops trust in your relationships. Here is some guidance on good feedback:

Start with the positives

If you begin with a negative (e.g. you need to improve XYZ) that can sometimes affect the other person’s confidence. Many people have a critical voice inside their heads, so it is important to start by affirming the positive things so that people feel psychologically safe, supported and ready to grow from feedback. One model is to use the feedback sandwich where you begin with a positive, state an improvement target for the filling and end on another positive.

Be constructive, not critical

All feedback can be stated in a negative or a positive way. For example: “You were too quiet, we couldn’t hear you,” versus, “You need to speak louder so that your instructions are clear.” They both address the same point but the second feedback tells the person how to make a positive change, the first seems to place blame. Always try to give feedback that sets a positive goal for the other person.

When THIS then THAT

Using “When THIS then THAT” helps you to get across the important growth point without blaming the other person:

1. “When you explained the instructions for 10 minutes, participants seemed bored.”
2. “When we discussed domestic violence, I felt that participants were more upset than we planned for.”
3. “When you interrupted me a few times I started feeling nervous that I was doing it wrong.”

Focus on a solution

It is important to suggest a solution or goal moving forward on each growth area you have identified during your evaluation. It can sometimes be helpful to phrase solutions as a question so that you are not telling people what to do, but offering a suggestion for them to think about. For example, the above challenges could be solved in the following way:

1. “Could you make the explanation shorter, or use actions / movement to keep the audience engaged?”
2. “Maybe next time we run this session we need to have a stronger explanation at the beginning so that participants know what to expect. Are there other ways we can manage their emotions?”
3. “It would help me if we had a signal that I need to make a change, rather than you interrupting whilst I speak.”

Giving and receiving feedback at the conclusion of a project is vital to Project Management success. There are different approaches for evaluating projects vs people and for gaining stakeholder feedback vs giving feedback. Employing these recommendations could make all the difference to how your team functions through the process of managing projects.

This was the final instalment in the 5-part Project Management for self-leaders series. Through this series, you’ve taken a deep dive into visioning / goal setting, getting organised, time management, risk management and evaluation / feedback. This is a rich subject, with so many more elements that you might want to explore in a practical way. The Self Leadership Initiative is here for you. Book in a FREE 30 minute chat with Founder Gemma Perkins to discuss your team’s needs today.