How can evaluative thinking and practice inform performance models for organizations and personnel?

Workshop Description

In the world today there are many ways in which we measure, count and determine whether something is worth the effort or not. In Australia and many other countries, new government legislation is requiring government-funded entities to become more transparent in their practice and to develop a more cohesive narrative about the worth, or impact, for the betterment of society. This places the executives of such entities in a position of needing evaluative thinking and practice to guide how they may build the narrative that documents and demonstrates this type of impact. In thinking about where to start, executives, project and program managers may consider this workshop as a professional development opportunity to explore both the intended and unintended consequences of performance models as tools of evaluation.

This workshop will offer participants an opportunity to unpack the place of performance models as an evaluative tool through the following:

• What shape does an ethical, sound and valid performance measure for an organization or personnel take?
  
•  What role does cultural specificity play in the design and development of an performance model for an organisation or for personnel?
  
• How are stakeholders able to identify risk during the design and development of such models?
  
• When and where will dissemination strategies be required?
  
• And so what? How can you determine that your performance model implementation has made a difference now or in the future?
  

Facilitator

Dr. Lyn Alderman is the Associate Director, Academic Quality and Standards, Chancellery at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She holds a PhD in evaluation and holds the positions of President, Australasian Evaluation Society and Editor, Evaluation Journal of Australasia.

Dr. Alderman lead the implementation of two major evaluation systems for her university and has received a national award for QUT’s approach to standardized reporting where the evaluative framework then leads to curriculum conversations.