A Gardener’s Lesson on Evaluation Planning

By Emily Neill, Research and Evaluation Assistant

Variety of green vegetables including peppers, chard, and tomatoes grow inside a hoop house.

There is still snow on the ground in Arkansas, but the end of February means it’s time to start planning for my 2025 garden. For me, a project management nut, this means spreadsheets, diagrams, and soil pH tests. As I began the dive into my planning processes this year, I started to reflect on how steps for planning a garden are similar to evaluation planning (and not just because I’m in a committed relationship with Excel!). From soil preparation to harvest time, there are a multitude of parallels that can be drawn from nature to help guide the evaluation planning process. Let’s explore a few together.

Gathering

The first step for any project planning is to gather your available resources. My approach is to divide resources into three fundamental categories: time, space, and materials.

Time

Before I even begin to think about ordering seeds for the year, I have to consider my planting timeline. The central point that my entire gardening schedule is built upon is my last frost date. This date informs when I order seeds, start certain varieties indoors, and conduct initial soil testing. Of course, the Farmer’s Almanac isn’t always accurate, so I pay careful attention to the local forecast and the temperature of my soil as I approach estimated planting dates.

The initial stages of evaluation planning follow a lot of the same thinking. Timelines are incredibly important, and identifying a central point (often either a program start or end date) to base other deadlines around helps to bring structure to the planning process. Knowing your central point will help inform other priorities, such as instrument development, data collection, data processing, and reporting deadlines.

Space

The next thing I consider when planning my garden is the physical space it will occupy. This includes considerations like total square footage, how the space is divided (e.g., in-ground vs. raised beds, trellises, pots), and environmental factors like sunlight, soil composition, and drainage. All of these impact my decisions about where I locate plants, as well as how many and what kinds of plants I grow.

In evaluation planning, space comprises both physical space in your project calendar (this connects back to time) and more conceptual types of space, like scope, scale, and environmental factors.

Scope and scale are intrinsically connected to timeline considerations. If the scope of your evaluation aims to understand multiple complex aspects of a program, or the scale encompasses a wide range of programs or implementations, it may be necessary to expand your timeline. Conversely, if your timeline is limited, the scope and scale will have to contract to fit those constraints.

Environmental considerations, like trending priorities within the field, current research practices, and your organization’s internal direction, will also impact how you plan for evaluation. It is important to reflect on your plan and consider whether it aligns with these environmental factors. Being a keen observer of current conditions and understanding their influences results in a more informed and proactive approach to evaluation planning.

Materials

Now for the most tangible (and fun) part of planning a garden: materials. Materials encompass the more obvious aspects of gardening, such as seeds and soil, but the minor things can take over your life pretty quickly. The number of seed starting trays, plastic labels, and plant misters that I have sitting unused on shelves is frankly a little embarrassing. A lesson that I’m constantly reminding myself of is that simple is always better! No amount of special trowels, peat moss, or high-tech UV lights will make me a better gardener. That is down to planning and consistency.

Funding is perhaps the most obvious material consideration for evaluation planning. You cannot source staff, consultants, and equipment without the capital to acquire them. The financial demands of every evaluation are different, and your approach to funding will likely shift as a result of these requirements. Securing a reliable source of funding should be a top priority for any organization embarking on an evaluation project, whether that means setting aside funds internally or looking for grant funding that supports programs and evaluation efforts.

Appropriate staffing for the evaluation work is another obvious consideration for any evaluation. Knowing how to leverage your staff’s expertise, capacity, and interests, within your evaluation plan will increase its efficiency and efficacy. In some cases, finding a trusted external evaluator may be a good route as well.

Finally, you will need to ensure you have the proper equipment to execute your evaluation. The specifics will vary according to your goals, but at a minimum you will likely need access to data management tools (e.g., Excel, Dedoose) and instrument software (e.g., Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey).

Planting

Congratulations! You have gathered and inventoried your resources. Now it’s time to move on to planting the seeds of your evaluation planning. Two key attitudes will help carry you through this phase: preparation and patience.

Preparation

Around early April, my seedlings have sprouted (and I’ve only killed half of them - hooray!). Now it’s time to plant. I make adjustments to the soil and ensure proper rotation of crops to preserve soil health. I also adjust my planting diagrams according to which plants successfully germinated.

This kind of preparation is also common in evaluation planning when you examine the infrastructure you have in place to implement the evaluation. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

Are there consistent and reasonable protocols established for all evaluation components (e.g., instrument development, research methods, team communication)?
If the evaluation does not go according to plan, are there possible alternative approaches (i.e., what’s your plan B)?
Is there a dedicated party (or process) to oversee timelines and ensure deliverables are met?

This is the time to let your inner Chicken Little run free and think through all the possible ways the sky could fall. A dose of proactivity now will save you from reactionary decision-making down the road.

Patience

Gardening continues to remind me that not everything goes according to plan. Even with as much preparation as I put in, without a hefty dose of patience I would never get through a full season of crazy weather, squash bugs (derogatory), and rogue chickens who have a penchant for cherry tomatoes.

Patience is a virtue that will serve you well in evaluation planning. It is important to give the planning process, and yourself, some grace when you encounter obstacles. Maintaining open-mindedness, creativity, and flexibility (and padding your timeline just a bit) will help you overcome the unexpected.

Growing

Whew! You have done a huge amount of preparation, and now things are underway. Your plants have sprouted, your programs are running, but your work isn’t done. This is when all of the processes you have put in place are put to the test. This stage will require you to maintain your plan in order to sustain growth, and make pivots where necessary to achieve your ultimate goals.

Maintaining

There are a number of things that require attention after my garden is rooted. Monitoring conditions is key to a successful harvest at the end of the season. Making sure my plants have enough water, clearing any pests, appropriate pruning, and consistent fertilizing will typically yield good results.

Emily’s garden in mid-spring with tomato vines and potatoes sprouted.

At this point your evaluation plan has been finalized and it’s time to enact the plan . Trust the processes and the people you have set in place to execute the plan, but take note of the conditions. Here are a few things to ask yourself:

Are things flowing smoothly?
Do any adjustments need to be made?
What is going well and could be made even better next time with a little more investment?

Pivoting

Any gardener knows that flexibility and resilience are essential to growing healthy plants. Innumerable things can go wrong along the way, and it’s important to be ready to respond to things like unexpected frost and bug swarms in the moment.

During your evaluation, it’s possible you’ll find things that need tweaking. Any number of things from unexpected timeline shifts to personnel changes can affect the processes you have put in place. When things go awry, it presents an opportunity to think about the project in ways you wouldn’t have if everything had gone smoothly. Instead of seeing bumps in the road as a problem, embrace the chance to innovate.

Harvesting

With lots of elbow grease (and a little bit of luck), in July I’ll be knee-deep in heirloom tomatoes. The same grit and hard work applies to evaluation planning. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you work through the process:

Begin by canvassing your available resources (i.e., time, space, materials).
Identify the timeline for your evaluation plan.
Observe conditions and take an informed approach to planning.
Proactivity now will save you from reactionary decision-making later.
Not everything goes according to plan.
Trust the processes and people you have set in place.
Embrace the opportunity to innovate.

Like gardening, evaluation planning relies on careful preparation and maintaining a healthy mindset. Hopefully you’ve found a few helpful takeaways that you can implement in your own practice. Until next time, here’s hoping for warmer weather on the horizon!

A mini watermelon on the vine in Emily’s garden.

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