The data that is derived can include quantitative and qualitative reports. But all of the indicators will be capable of being measured in a way that clearly justifies program operations. Evaluate client outcomes and measure program impact on those outcomes. The final step in building a performance based management system is the periodic and comprehensive assessment of the extent to which client and organizational outcomes are being achieved by the program activities that are delivered. All too often, this step is ignored and the results of interventions are unknown.
Evaluation needs to be considered an ongoing activity that is part of any intervention.
Agencies should continually focus on improving the outcomes they intend in terms of knowledge, attitudes, behavior and cost effectiveness. Without evaluation, there is no way to tell if one intervention is better than another or if one works better with one target population compared to another. Furthermore, lack of good and ongoing evaluations leads to public and organizational mistrust of human services and the over reliance on anecdotal or exceptional case data as justification for program operations. When funds are not short, this type of justification is sometimes adequate but when tight times come, impressionistic data is usually insufficient to support continuation of program resources. Unfortunately, this means that programs that do not have good performance indicators and outcomes suffer in the competition for scarce dollars.