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Evaluating Strategy (Patrizi, Patton, 2010)

New Directions for Evaluation

Patricia A. Patrizi, Michael Quinn Patton, eds.

"strategic learning connects evaluation and strategy as explicitly interdependent and mutually reinforcing."

JLJ - "Mr. evaluation" himself, Michael Quinn Patton, lectures us on strategy. Evaluation and strategy should not be separate entities, he argues with Patrizi in the book's first article, as complex situations (relax - these seasoned educators will help you distinguish among simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic situations) call for strategic learning, where we decide how to probe in order to uncover emergent effects that often lie hidden below the surface, yet exist nevertheless as potent, dynamic, driving forces that we must acknowledge and manage with strategic positioning and leveraging.

A book or article by Patton is often packed with practical wisdom - useful to anyone both in and out of the classroom - and well as multiple academic citations - these authors have likely read more (and more widely) than you have.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the luxury of a well-written book. "Evaluate" for yourself, after reading my notes below, whether this accessible book is of interest to you.

As a critique, the quarterly "New Directions for Evaluation" Journal cites the fact, under "Editorial Policy and Procedures", that "The editors do not consider or publish unsolicited single manuscripts. Each issue of the journal is devoted to a single topic, with contributions solicited, organized, reviewed, and edited by a guest editor." So I see that New Directions for Evaluation do not consider Evaluation of unsolicited articles. I see that "New Directions for Evaluation" are now considering submissions from an exclusive club only. It is too inconvenient to evaluate *all* new directions for Evaluation, when publishing a Journal called New Directions for Evaluation. I get it. 

Strategy as the Focus for Evaluation, Patton, Patrizi, p.5-28

p.16-18 realized strategy (where you end up after some period of time) begins as intended strategy (planing), but, not all of what is intended is realized. Some things get dropped or go undone, becoming unrealized strategy. What remains, deliberate strategy, intersects with emergent strategy to become realized strategy. Emergent strategy comes from seizing new opportunities, which is a reason some things that were planned go undone as new and better opportunities arise (Mintzberg, 2007, Chapter 1). [JLJ - just as well, we might seize reserve opportunities as our original opportunity did not offer the potential we had first hoped. We move into the future with a portfolio of opportunities, each performing better or worse than hoped, dropping some, and acquiring others.]

p.19 Strategic evaluation... expects that some of what is planned will go unrealized, some will be implemented roughly as expected, and some new things will emerge.

p.19

If deliberate strategy is about control, emergent strategy is about learning... Almost every sensible real-life strategy process combines emergent learning with deliberate control. (Mintzberg, 2007, p. 5)

Mintzberg emphasizes that ongoing attention to strategy should focus on learning and adaptation, not accountability (i.e., whether what was planned was actually implemented as planned with the planned results). In Mintzberg's model, strategy is an ongoing process of venturing and learning that supports how an organization creates strategy over time. "Doing" is the precursor to "learning," and learning is the precursor to developing a robust vision for the work to be done going forward.

p.19 organizations are strongest when they employ cycles of venturing, learning, and visioning as part and parcel of how strategy is approached.

p.20 strategic learning connects evaluation and strategy as explicitly interdependent and mutually reinforcing.

Evaluation is a support for strategy. First and foremost, evaluation must be seen and positioned as a key support for strategic development and management; it should have a seat at the strategy table. Traditionally, evaluation is not viewed in this way. It is considered a separate component, usually entering after a strategy already has been developed or implemented. An emphasis on strategic learning fundamentally changes evaluation's role and positioning. (Coffman et al., 2010, p. 5)

p.21 Max Boisot... examined strategically the important distinctions, important to evaluators, between data, information and knowledge.

Data: discernible differences between alternative states of a system

Information: data that modify the expectations or conditional readiness of an observer

Knowledge: the set of expectations that an observer holds with respect to an event. "It is a disposition to act in a particular way that has to be inferred from behavior rather than observed directly." (Boisot, 1998, p. 21)

p.21 Knowledge is the basis for strategic expectations. A change in knowledge can be expected to alter strategic expectations.

p.22 Traditional, methodical, and detailed strategic planning works when the environment is relatively knowable, stable, and manageable. However, when the complexity of the environment reduces certainty because of turbulence and lack of definitive knowledge about how to achieve desired results, strategic approaches must be more emergent and flexible. Evaluating strategy would then need to be highly adaptive and developmental (Patton, 2010), matching the evaluation approach to the strategic approach.

p.23 The field of evaluation has long distinguished between idea failure versus implementation failure, and emphasized the importance of being able to tell the difference.

p.97 The identification of patterns is the central analytic tool in strategy assessment to generate hypotheses about actions, perspectives, and position. Patterns emerging from what is actually done... inform us about the forces, thinking, and learning that guide action.