The Evaluation Consulting Process

1
The Evaluation Consulting Process

• IMLS-UIUC Evaluation Institute
• June 16, 2003
• Leigh S. Estabrook

2
Theoretical to Practice

• Importance of mental model for understanding and
  for action
• Group relations theory but one approach to
  developing mental models, but one Ive found
  particularly useful

3
Authorization to Work

• Who has asked you to carry out the evaluation?
• Have you been asked personally, or has your
  institution or another individual asked you to
  participate
• Why you?
• Expertise? Affiliation? Connections?
• Who is paying for the evaluation?
• Are there any restrictions or conditions on your
  autonomy to act? (Standards)

4
Example--abc library

• Conflicting expectations of director, board and
  staff
• Disagreement about who was authorizing the
  consultation
• Would you have accepted the job?

5
Example--this institute

• What is person paying your salary expecting you
  to do while you are here?
• What has been negotiated by Leigh on your behalf
  and how was that understood by clients?--e.g.,
• What are we telling you to do as an Institute
  participant?

6
Formal Authorization and feelings of being
authorized will affect how you take up your work

• Indicators for which to look
• depression
• uncertainty about how to move forward
• deference to others
• What to do
• Clarify, clarify, clarify

7
Questions of Authority within the Consulting Team

• What is the role of advisory committee
• With a consulting team who decides who
  decides--who is in charge?
• Importance of clarity within for effective work
  with client
• Importance of managing assumptions about one
  another based on predetermined role
  relationships, custom and assumptions about
  competence

8
Role

• Need for clarity you are acting as
  evaluator--(e.g., Ed and Soc Sci Lib)
• Recognition of prior and potential special
  relationships both --connectedness in this field
• Tendency to gravitate to familiar and comfortable
  roles
• Issues in managing secrets before and during
  consultation

9
Boundaries--work is not possible unless some
boundaries are known to all members and unless
they are established and maintained

• Maintain integrity
• Need for permeability to allow transactions
  across boundaries
• Variety of ways of signaling and maintaining
  boundaries while allowing work across them

10
Unconscious Processes in Group Work

• Projections onto authority--transference
• Assumptions about leadership and authority based
  on host of other factors
• Group phenomenon as well as individual one
• Critical need for consultant to understand how he
  or she may often be perceived and the nature of
  authority