You can use your evaluation results to make recommendations for continuing, expanding, redesigning, or abandoning your policy or program. Go back to your initial assessment and problem definition and determine whether your efforts are having an impact on the problem you set out to address, or whether your original problem definition was accurate or has changed.
As you think about recommendations, you may want to revisit the work your team did to develop your evaluation plan, including your evaluation purpose and intended use.
This is an important time to re-engage stakeholders and solicit their feedback. Following are some tips for doing so:
- Consider your stakeholders’ values and align recommendations.
- Share draft recommendations with stakeholders and solicit feedback.
- Relate your recommendations to the original purposes and uses of the evaluation.
- Target your recommendations appropriately for each audience.¹
Once you’ve vetted your recommendations with stakeholders, you can begin to use the evaluation findings to adjust your policy and program as necessary.
1. US Department of Health and Human Services. Physical Activity Evaluation Handbook. In: US Department of Health and Human Services, editor. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2002.