Step 5.4:

Develop a data analysis and reporting plan.

What To Do

The last step in your monitoring and evaluation planning involves:

• Determining how the data will be analyzed
• Deciding how results will be summarized, interpreted, disseminated and used to improve program implementation
• Developing an evaluation timetable and budget
• Folding the monitoring and evaluation plan into your overall program plan

When this step is completed, program staff, evaluators, partners and stakeholders will have a shared understanding of how monitoring and evaluation relates to the program.

How To Do It

Analysis

Your plan should outline how the data for each monitoring and evaluation question will be coded, summarized and analyzed. Evaluation data analysis is technically complex, and expert assistance may be required.

It’s also good to have the plan address:

• how conclusions will be justified (e.g., how the data relate to standards, if there are any)
• how stakeholders both inside and outside the agency will be kept informed about the monitoring and evaluation activities and findings and supported in using the information that is generated
• when the monitoring and evaluation activities will be implemented and how they are timed in relation to program implementation
• costs of monitoring and evaluation, presented in the format preferred or required by your agency or funding agency.

Dig deeper into how conclusions will be justified. Learn more about communication methods through stakeholder reports.

Reporting results

Describe how the monitoring and evaluation data will be reported. Plan to use whatever formats have been stipulated by program managers and stakeholders.

In general, feedback can be provided through either oral or written reports. They should be brief, understandable and well organized.

The reports should include several key parts:

• A brief description of the program components and activities that will be assessed by monitoring and evaluation
• The monitoring and evaluation questions and methods that will be used and where they came from
• How results will be interpreted, and when and how they will be available

Consult CDC’s Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health for several additional suggestions about reporting data collected for an evaluation. (See Evaluation Framework)

Develop a timetable and budget

Monitoring is ongoing, but you have to decide when to collect information to answer evaluation questions. Interventions should be fully operational before they are evaluated. If evaluation data are intended to inform a program decision, the data must be gathered and reported in a timely fashion.

Document your timeline in a format that is familiar to or otherwise makes sense for your program or agency.

Format options include Gantt charts, PERT charts and others. Whatever option you choose, your timeline should cover:

• Evaluation activities (e.g., obtaining resources, hiring personnel, securing a vendor, obtaining IRB clearance if needed, recruiting participants, collecting data, analyzing data, reporting findings)
• Program activities

A monitoring and evaluation budget should be based on your goals and objectives as well as your methods. In other words, you should spend the most to measure program priorities.

Describe all the budget items using your internal budget formats, including direct and indirect costs, and provide a budget narrative that details and justifies the funding requested for monitoring and evaluation.

Your budget should:

• Tell the same story as your monitoring/evaluation narrative
• Include detailed descriptions or justifications if needed
• Estimate monitoring/evaluation costs to be incurred during the program's duration
• Set aside funds for miscellaneous or contingency expenses
• Include all items required by the funding source
• Include all items paid for by other sources
• Include volunteer and in-kind services to be provided
• Detail fringe benefits separate from salaries, if required
• Include all fees for consultants or contractors
• Delineate details of all non-personnel costs
• Include indirect costs when appropriate

You are now ready to summarize the monitoring and evaluation reporting plan, timeline and budget in My Plan.

Incorporating the monitoring and evaluation plan into the larger intervention plan helps program staff and stakeholders understand:

• the rationale for the various monitoring and evaluation activities,
• the timing in relation to the program, and
• how efforts will be coordinated so that evaluation activities don't impinge on program implementation.

This plan can be circulated as needed. For example, it will provide you with all the information you need to submit a research proposal to an Institutional Review Board. This is a body usually based in a university, health department or contract research firm that examines proposed research with a eye towards ethical treatment of human participants. Program evaluation is sometimes declared exempt or is reviewed on an expedited basis, because it does not present much risk to participants and does not collect or retain information that could identify them.

Knowledge Check

Test Your Knowledge

Complete My Plan

Go to your My Plan file and enter your data analysis and reporting plan.