Evaluation

People would always say to my father, "Gee whiz, you've done real well. Now you can rest."  And he would reply, "Oh, no. Got to keep going and do it better." J.Willard Marriott, Jr

The evaluation issue assesses how the element is rated by the organization, that is, how suitable it is, whether it is still appropriate or getting out-of-date and how it compares with the equivalent element in peer organizations or competitors. Some appraisals will be against norms or standards - self imposed or industry accepted. Others, such as management style or social behaviour, will be by ‘gut feel’ but even these are capable of being quantitatively assessed - for example, social behaviour by the number of cases of bullying or harassment.

Evaluation applies to all organizations: Non-commercial organizations are also interested in how others in the same sector are performing. A hospital will compare its survival rate for heart operations with other hospitals, and a university will want to know how the success rate, with regard to the employment of its graduates, compares with other universities. An organization should be interested in comparing virtually all the elements of the model with how other organizations make use of and exploit them - whether vision statements, reputation, skills of staff, services it delivers or benefits and perks it offers staff.

Benchmarking: When comparing or 'benchmarking' against other organizations, those chosen should be the sector leaders - comparisons against the average or mediocre are of little worth. Comparisons can be carried out in a variety of ways: against different departments of the same organization - comparing administrative overheads in production against those in sales; against peer organizations - the ratio of money spent to money collected for charities; against organizations in different industries - the number of days to pay suppliers by local government compared with the retail trade.

Evaluating what? The easiest to appraise are sheer numbers but they may not be the most appropriate parameters. For example, it is not just the number of days training which is important, it is also the relevance and standard of training and this is much more difficult to measure. Similarly, sheer examination results may not give a true indication of the standard of education of a college and perhaps a better measure could be the career situation of people ten years after graduation.