Creating measurement addiction – a tool for better advocacy and improved management
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address an important but neglected aspect of evidence-based management, how to apply actionable data to strategic decision making to support the organization in reaching appropriate decisions. This process involves connecting advocacy work with active measures to collect and interpret impact data, which are the real ingredient to help understand the big picture and make advocacy more efficient.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents two complementary models of intervention to better use relevant data to help management decisions, within the program team and beyond the program team. In both cases the paper attempts to identify the key factors in understanding outcome evidence in order to have better communication and help the decision-taking process.
Findings
Customizing evaluation results in order to present the information in an accessible form for various stakeholders appears to be a key factor in delivering the right message and having a successful advocacy campaign.
Originality/value
This paper reports on two complementary approaches to persuade stakeholders (program managers, or stakeholders external to the program team) to take action based on specific impact or management data delivery. The idea is potentially appropriate for any program, or project, where advocacy processes are needed to determine appropriate actions. Processing and presenting data in an actionable way is a key success factor to determine the expected management decision or successful advocacy step.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Janet Sawaya, Program Officer, Global Libraries for her constant interest in using advocacy. This helped the author a lot by raising interesting questions and challenges on how to better use data for advocacy. The author also thanks David Streatfield, Impact Consultant, Global Libraries, for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and for continuous support in the work. Last, but not least, the author thanks the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for funding Biblionet – without it this work could not be possible.
Citation
Chiranov, M. (2014), "Creating measurement addiction – a tool for better advocacy and improved management", Performance Measurement and Metrics, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 99-111. https://doi.org/10.1108/PMM-05-2014-0016
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited