Leading with Insight: Fostering a Culture of Evaluation and Data-Driven Decision-Making

By Emily Peterman, MPH Senior Director, Evaluation, ASTHO

The decisions public health leaders make shape the trajectory of not only their organizations but also the communities they serve. When the stakes are that high, it’s not enough for leaders to rely solely on their intuition or past experiences. Evaluation is a powerful tool to inform decisions in a fast-paced environment. Grounding your decisions in evaluative insights doesn’t have to slow your organization down. Still, you need both a plan and culture in place that supports making data informed decisions. In this article, we’ll explore four ways leaders can cultivate a culture of evaluation that ensures decision-making is data driven, inclusive, and timely.

1. View evaluation as an equity tool. Evaluation describes individual and community experiences, outcomes, and perspectives to clarify both needs and the value of our efforts. Whether from inside your organization or the communities you serve, make sure diverse voices are centered during each evaluation phase: planning, data collection, and interpretation. At the end of the day, the way data are collected and later analyzed will illustrate disparities to guide your decision-making. Along the way, from planning through reporting, a practical evaluation is centered on its community voices by establishing evaluation questions together, participating in data collection, and interpreting results alongside participants to tell the most accurate and inclusive story. Evaluation data offers leaders a lens to examine the impact of their organization. When equity is intentionally prioritized during each phase, you will have another tool to make decisions that drive meaningful change and create environments for everybody and every community to thrive.

2. Prioritize quality in your evaluation processes. The fundamental principle of “garbage in, garbage out” should be applied to the capabilities of data to drive decision-making. In evaluation, this means the reliability of the insights you’re capturing depends heavily on the quality and rigor of your evaluation processes. When leaders use incomplete, flawed, or insufficient data, the decisions risk being biased or just plain wrong. Whenever possible, advocate for developing and using evaluation plans and methods, including organization-wide systems and processes, to capture, catalog, and interpret data. When the things we’ve learned sit in disparate systems, or a single report gets filed away, the learning process ends before it can really begin. Investing in an evaluation team and data management systems that can link information in a standard, as well as one-off or unique, ways will provide program and organizational leadership with an efficient way to query evaluation data at any time. The upfront and continuous investment in quality is key to leveraging evaluation when so much is on the line.

3. Remember to monitor programs along the way. Measuring a program’s outcome, or end state, is the culmination of a successful evaluation. But why wait until the very end to look at evaluation data? Monitoring outcomes along the way provides accountability for those responsible for reaching these outcomes while providing insights into what is working well or where adjustments are needed. By collecting and monitoring data, organizations produce transparency and confidence when leaders make decisions. Looking at outcome evaluation data on a routine basis is how leaders can proactively address challenges and optimize program performance. Simultaneously implementing and evaluating programs builds trust and confidence in an organization’s ability to deliver on its mission, something we’ve learned time and time again can not be understated in our mission to transform health outcomes.

4. Value the nuance and context. Let’s face it: often, leaders only see a few numbers on a dashboard, and that is what they use for decision-making. These data points are incredibly valuable for tracking trends and monitoring performance at a high level, but data-driven leaders will be curious about what happened behind the scenes. Take time to understand these data. One way to do that is by hosting a “data party” to explore data in a collaborative and engaging environment. These purposeful gatherings blend the principles or evaluation with social interaction by creating unique spaces for learning and creativity. Everyone will bring a unique perspective and expertise to the table that, when pooled together, helps uncover new insights, patterns, or hidden trends in our data. Capturing these nuances and approaching data with curiosity will unlock connections, ideas, and innovation that would not surface if leaders only glanced at a single metric on their dashboard.

An organization’s culture of evaluation serves as the cornerstone for making data-informed decisions as a leader. When a culture of curiosity and reflection guides every decision, action, and initiative, individuals and teams can contribute to collective learning and growth. A progressive culture of evaluation is committed to much more than performance measures and accountability. It will promise shared learning, improvement, and use of data to drive meaningful actions that produce intended individual and community impacts. Organizations and leaders that champion a culture of evaluation and data informed decision-making are positioning their work to have the long-term success and sustainability needed to transform public health.