Project managers evaluate their projects to see if the projects meet the company and team's goals and objectives. Evaluating projects after completion can help you better understand the impact and identify areas that need improvement.

Project evaluation is vital to any project since it can provide insights and lessons for future projects. Once you complete the project evaluation process, sharing your findings with stakeholders and your team members is essential. While there are many methods to evaluate a project, here are the basic steps that you need to take, regardless of the way you choose.

1. Develop an Evaluation Plan

As you create your project, you should consider the objectives and goals you want to achieve and share them with your team, providing them with a clear path forward. The goals and objectives you determine can help you choose the project evaluation method you want to use.

For example, if the project goal is to increase team productivity, you may want to review data regarding task completion as a tool to evaluate productivity rates. You might be interested in learning how to set project milestones for increased productivity.

2. Select Source of Evaluation & Prepare for Implementation

The first step is to choose how you want to collect the data for the evaluation. You can decide to use interviews, focus groups, surveys, case studies, or observation. Choose an evaluation tool that will suit the people you're looking to get info from, which means identifying the people you want to include.

Whether you plan on interviewing or surveying people, you must prepare the questions ahead. If you use a focus group, you must send invitations, select a date, and list questions.

After you choose your source of evaluation and are ready for implementation, you should share a detailed schedule and delegate duties, so your team is prepared for the next step. If you're uncertain about establishing who does what, you may be interested in learning the best tips for defining team roles and responsibilities.

3. Implement Project Evaluation

While the project is in progress, monitoring all the elements is critical to ensure it is within budget and running on schedule. It is helpful to create status reports you share with the team, so everyone is clear on the project status.

The implementation process differs based on the evaluation tools and methods you choose. It would help if you focused on:

• Pre-project evaluation: This is where you develop project goals and objectives that you will use to determine the project's viability.
• Ongoing evaluation: Monitor details like the budget, quality of work, and schedule.
• Post-project evaluation: Measure the project's success based on outcomes and impact.

4. Review the Data

Once you gather the data for evaluation, it's time to analyze it for weaknesses, strengths, and trends. It's also an opportunity to verify if the project came close to meeting the objectives and goals set out at the start. You can use the team's objectives and goals to translate the data received for the next step.

5. Create a Report for Your Team

After you complete your data analysis, it's necessary to summarize the evaluation results. You should choose a format that meets the needs of the reader, which are your stakeholders and team members.

After completing every project, providing a report on your project evaluation is a valuable habit. It can bring attention to areas that need improvement, feature intentional and unintentional impacts, and determine whether or not the team met its goals and objectives. Before writing your report, you might be interested in learning the best types of project management reports you should know.

6. Discuss Next Steps

The final step in the project evaluation process is discussing the next steps based on the findings. It's essential to initiate a discussion about the results of the evaluation.

A discussion can inspire innovative ideas to improve the team, strengthen communication, and prompt suggestions on improving future projects. If you want your report to stand out to stakeholders and get your team's attention, you may want to see how you can incorporate the best tips to make your project reports stand out.

Tools You Can Use for Project Evaluation

The following are tools that you can use for your project evaluation. You may find that some of more suitable for your project than others.

1. Surveys

Surveys are an evaluation tool that allows you to determine how a group of people feel before a project starts and then survey them afterward. This evaluation process can measure various things, including self-esteem, preferences, achievements, and attitudes.

It would be best if you surveyed members of your target audience. You get to see if people's feelings shift positively after the completion of the project, and if that was the project goal, then you know you achieved it. You can survey in numerous ways, including by phone, paper, or electronically.

2. Observation

Observation allows you to assess or monitor a situation or process while documenting what the observer sees and hears. Seeing behaviors and actions in a natural context can provide insight and understanding about the object you are evaluating. When using observation, it's critical to use a consistent and systemic approach as you gather data.

3. Case Studies

Case studies can provide more depth than other evaluation tools. When you do a case study, you focus on a particular group within a community, village, person, or a subset of a broader group. You can use case studies to illustrate trends or show stark differences.

A case study analysis requires pulling critical themes and results to help predict future trends, highlight hidden issues, or provide an understanding of an essential issue with greater clarity.

4. Interviews

Interviews can be a qualitative or quantitative evaluation tool, depending on how you use them. The process involves a conversation between an interviewer and the person answering the questions.

You can use interviews to collect narrative information and data to comprehend better a respondent's unique worldview, perspectives, and opinions. There are different types of interview techniques and approaches, including:

• Structured interviews: These are quantitative investigations, often survey-based research with standardized questions in a questionnaire format. The responses are usually in the structure of a multiple choice list and are not open-ended.
• Semi-structured: As the name implies, this is a mixed framework of general themes and pre-established questions adaptable to the interview session context. The interviewer is free to omit questions and play with the order of the questions they ask, and the questions are a variety of open and close-ended.
• Unstructured: This format is informal or conversational, where all the questions are open-ended.

5. Focus Groups

Focus groups are group interviews you design to explore people's attitudes about a particular subject. They are an excellent way to discover the most common issues for the group or community when information is limited.

To do a focus group, you must ensure you have a capable facilitator and that you've planned it well. Focus groups can deliver detailed information on issues that concern a community or a specific demographic.

Are You Ready for Your Next Project Evaluation?

Evaluations are a vital part of any project, and they help you confirm if you've met your project goals and objectives and can help you establish best practices for future projects. If you don't review what's working and what isn't after each project, you leave yourself open to repeating costly mistakes.

If you're looking for a way to streamline your future projects, you may consider using project management software if you don't already. You may want to read some information on how to get started if trying new software feels intimidating.