The Role of Program Evaluation in Public Management

The process of program evaluation is an effort to judge the extent and efficiency of a program's accomplishment and to find ways of improving it. If an evaluation is not used, the evaluator failed to affect the decisions which are being made about the program. When an evaluation is useful, it answers a specific, clearly defined question which someone wanted answered. It is essential to find out when decisions will be made. The evaluator's first obligation is to be honest with his client. He must seek to be as helpful as possible to the client without compromising his professional responsibilities. A formal written report permits evaluators to communicate with their professional peers and serves as a record of the evaluation. Program managers should have a basic understanding of the process of evaluation but not necessarily the techniques of system analysis. Evaluation can be an increasingly useful tool in raising a program's level of effectiveness and demonstrating that level of effectiveness. In trying to demonstrate the effectiveness of a program, the key to success lies in identifying the objectives sought by those who will determine the fate of the program, maximizing actual effectiveness against those objectives, and then measuring that effectiveness in terms which are meaningful to those who must be convinced.