Choose Your Own Adventure: Options for Adapting the Collaborating, Learning & Adapting (CLA) Maturity Self-assessment Process
By: Amy Leo and Rebecca Askin When it’s time to decide what to give my (Amy’s) kids for dinner, there are two ways to go about it. One approach is to ask them what they want to eat. Their response to this question will likely be something they enjoyed eating in recent memory. (As toddlers,
Evaluation for Learning and Adaptive Management: Connecting the Dots between Developmental Evaluation and CLA
By Monica Matts and Belen Mekonnen Since Headlight’s inception in 2019, we have honed our expertise in a few practice areas, including Developmental Evaluation (DE) and Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA). These two approaches are certainly related and reinforcing, but they are also distinct. What’s the connection between DE and CLA? How are they similar
Organizational Capacity Assessment Process: Part 2
By Yitbarek Woldetensay, Chelsie Kuhn, and Alison Harrell Introduction In Part 1 of this blog series, we described an Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA), why we conduct an OCA, and how to prepare for the OCA process. In this Part 2 blog post, we will describe how to conduct organizational capacity gap identification (including OCA workshop
Why Embeddedness Is Crucial For Use-Focused Developmental Evaluation Support
By Esrael Woldeeyesus Introduction “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” – Albert Einstein In other words, solutions are only as good as the understanding of the problem. The level of detail we know about the problem, such as
Learning to Make Our Assessments and Evaluations More Effective for Our Clients through Better Contextualization
By Maxine Secskas, CLAME Specialist, Headlight Consulting Services, LLC This blog came about as a response to my interest in learning more about how to get better feedback and insight from a client while designing an assessment or a tool. Last year, I was disappointed to realize that a very involved assessment and analysis that
Organizational Capacity Assessment Process (Part 1)
By Yitbarek Woldetensay and Chelsie Kuhn Background Local ownership and organizational learning have become integral to many international programs that engage in capacity development. However, many local organizations still need greater capacity to assume this leadership role. Hence, many international programs want to assess organizations’ capacity before and after their capacity-building interventions to identify capacity-building
Adaptive Action Planning Workshop: the What, Why, and How?
By Esrael Woldeeyesus, SDRM-SI DE Deputy Team Lead, Headlight Consulting Services, LLC. Many institutions conduct or commission studies or facilitate discussions to generate evidence to identify successes and areas for improvement. However, taking recommendations into action can be a challenge for two reasons: (1) some perceive evaluations or studies as just compliance activities and have
Locally-Led Developmental Evaluation Advantages and Limitations: The Case of Headlight Consulting Services
By: Endashaw Beshir, Esrael Woldeyesus, Tseday Tilahun, Yitbarek Woldetensay, and Yomif Worku Introduction Development and humanitarian challenges are local in nature; hence, effective humanitarian and development assistance requires an inclusive approach that centers local actors throughout all aspects of the work (USAID, 2022; USAID Learning Lab, 2022). Locally-led development improves the participatory process and enhances
Being a DE Admin – How the Role Shifts When Focusing on Locally-Led DEs
By Chelsie Kuhn and Julie Mandolini-Trummel Now that we have reminded readers of what DEs are, when DEs are the right fit, and how to determine if their project is ready for a DE, we wanted to share a bit more about one of the essential roles for implementing a DE—the DE Administrator. This post
Is Developmental Evaluation a fit for all projects? (Part 2)
By Dr. Yitbarek Woldetensay, Developmental Evaluation Lead, Headlight Consulting Services, LLC. Introduction As described in our previous post, two essential questions need to be answered before deciding that Developmental Evaluation (DE) is the right fit for our project. The first question (Is DE the right fit for the proposed project?) was described in our last
