Our training, resources and support will help you to ensure that:
- Everyone is on board with your evaluation process, and
- You have clear statements about the outcomes of your project or organisation.
Workshops
Getting started: outcomes and indicators is the first workshop in our Let’s Evaluate! programme and is the best place to start learning about how to set outcomes and choose indicators.
Resources for setting outcomes and indicators
What is an outcome?
Listen to Shona Wells, Training Officer explain what outcomes are in one minute!
What is an outcome?
So outcomes are the changes or differences that you hope to make through the work that you do and often we’re quite good at describing the activities that we deliver or the services that we deliver but find it a bit more challenging to explain the differences that we hope to make by delivering those activities. So that’s what outcomes are all about – explaining the difference or change that you hope to make through you work.
It can be helpful sometimes to ask yourself the question, ‘What is the problem we are trying to solve?’ and then based on that problem, you can start to think about the outcomes you hope to work towards, so what solutions might you be hoping to work towards to address that problem. And we recommend having outcomes so that you can measure the difference that you are making, not only so that you can prove the value of your work maybe to funders or to an external audience but also so you can improve your services as well.
How to write an outcome
Shona Wells, Training Officer talks you through writing an outcome in one minute!
How to write an outcome
Because outcomes are about change they should always contain a change word and by that we mean a word like increase, decrease, reduce, improve. They should describe the ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of change. So for example, if we had an outcome that was ‘older people will feel less isolated’, the ‘who’ is older people, ‘what we are hoping to change’ is how isolated they feel, and how do we hope that will change is the ‘less’. So the ‘how’ refers to the direction of change rather than how will we change it. The direction of change is the increase, decrease, more, less. So if an outcome is about change and describes the ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of change then it’s a well written outcome.
What is an indicator?
Grace Robertson, Training Officer at Evaluation Support Scotland explains indicators in less than one minute!
What is an indicator?
Once you know what changes or difference s you’re trying to make. That’s your outcomes. The next step is for each of your outcomes to set some indicators. Indicators are the things that you measure to tell you whether or not you’re achieving your outcomes. Indicators will tell you what questions you need answers to and they’ll tell you where you can get evidence about those changes happening. Indicators are especially useful when you are trying to measure softer outcomes – so things that are more subjective. An example might be an increase in confidence. Indicators will tell you what you need to measure to see if you’re achieving that outcome of something like increased confidence.
Working out what to measure: setting indicators
Working out what to measure: setting indicators
When you’re setting indicators for your outcomes there are some important
things to bear in mind so that they are useful. Because you normally need to
measure your indicators on more than one occasion it’s not helpful to have
change words within them, unlike with your outcomes. So instead you are going to have a neutral statement. Indicators often have words like level of, or ability to, or number of. So those are neutral things that you can measure on more than one occasion. An example for indicators of a soft outcome, like increased confidence, could be things like ability to make eye contact, willingness to get involved with activities, or ability to make friends. So setting clear indicators for your outcomes will tell you what things you need to measure.
ESS Evaluation Tool: Weaver’s Triangle
This tool can help you to clarify the impact you want to make and separate your aims, outcomes and activities.
ESS Support Guides
ESS Support Guide 1a Setting outcomes
This guide helps organisations work out what their outcomes are and how to write them.
ESS Support Guide 1b Working out what to measure (Setting indicators for your outcomes)
This guide explains ways to develop and use indicators to help measure outcomes.
ESS Support Guide 1c – Developing a Logic Model
This is a practical guide that focuses on how you put together a basic logic model to help you think about your aims, outcomes and activities.
Evaluation Guides
Evaluating Community Projects – A Practical Guide
These guidelines were developed to help 20 community and voluntary organisations to evaluate their work.
Explaining the difference your project makes: A big guide to using an outcomes approach
This guide sets out some of the main steps that you will have to take to plan and manage a project using an outcomes approach.
Case Studies
Case Study: Age Scotland
This case study is about how a series of support sessions with ESS helped Age Scotland set organisational outcomes and create a new evaluation toolkit for the whole organisation.
Case Study: ARC Scotland
This case study shows how ARC Scotland involved service users in setting outcomes for service.
Case Study: Evaluating public engagement work (The School of Life Sciences, Dundee University)
The School of Life Sciences at University of Dundee show how they evaluate public engagement activities.
Case Study: Funeral Link Scotland
This case study is about how tailored support sessions with ESS helped Funeral Link identify the difference that they made to their service users.
Case Study: Girlguiding Scotland
This case study by Girlguiding Scotland is about how to embed evaluation across an organisation who are dependent on volunteers.
Case Study: Hebridean Pursuits Outdoor Learning (HPOL)
ESS worked with HPOL to help clarify their outcomes and indicators. This case study is an example of an ESS evaluation principle: good evaluation should be about what matters.
Case Study: Music 4 U
This case study is about how a range of evaluation support helped Music 4 U get to grips with evaluation, and got them all on the same page.
Case Study: Pain Concern Helpline
This case study is about the steps Pain Concern took in order to capture the difference their telephone helpline makes for people living in chronic pain.
Case Study: Scottish Ballet
This case study is about two tailored support sessions that ESS facilitated for Scottish Ballet, to support them to set and measure outcomes.
Case Study: Shared Care Scotland
This case study is about how Shared Care Scotland (SCS) created an evaluation system for the Short Breaks Fund grants. To do this, SCS commissioned five tailored support sessions with ESS over 10 months.
Case Study: The Ecology Centre
This case study from The Ecology Centre is about how working as a team can help develop good evaluation practice .
Case Study: Waverley Care
This case study by Waverley Care is about the benefits of planning evaluation at the start of a project.
Other resources
Mapping personal outcomes to project-level outcomes
Shona Wells talks about how she helps third sector organisations see a way to use personal outcomes to show the difference their service makes.
Can’t find what you’re looking for?
Visit the Resources & Publications page. Or get in touch to ask for more help.