The marriage of pragmatism and theory in planning monitoring and evaluation? I have been in Canberra this week, running four one-day long training workshops on building ‘monitoring, evaluation, reporting and improvement’ (MERI) frameworks. This was in the Natural Resource Management Sector. When you train people in a framework, you really get to know it inside out, with all its imperfections. Interesting, that I have been running training in a basic set of steps for over 7 years now, and I can never get a perfect set of steps. But I reckon we are getting closer!

My current set of steps are now:

· Scope the MERI Plan

· Clarify the program logic

· Set/revise measures of success

· Develop a meaningful monitoring system

· Scope out a set of strategic evaluation questions

· Plan to reflect, learn and improve With various sub-steps etc below these.

It can never be perfect, because what we are actually doing is marrying two distinct theoretical frameworks together, Patton’s Utilisation focused evaluation framework (hence the questions) and a theory based approach (hence the logic). And they don’t quite sit together, logic does not lead to key evaluation questions, key evaluation questions based on what people want to know are not necessarily informed by an understanding of the programs theory of change. Both have their weaknesses, both are different, they don’t sit together perfectly - but we need them both! I’d be interested to get your comments on this. On another topic, the MERI logic we use for Natural resource management (which was a given) has been getting clearer and better over time. But, someone rightly pointed out, it has no mention of “reach” something that we love to see in logic models at Clear Horizon. Reach is about the extent to which different people have been reached by a program. Its very people-focused. John Mayne actually has it in his logic model. What do you reckon? Should it be in the NRM MERI logic? (sorry about the jargon, I’d be interested in what people have to say about reach in general too.)

Kind Regards Jess