Evaluation may be equally important to the planning, which goes into any event. For churches, just as we ask God to direct our thoughts and energies in creating an event, we should ask Him to direct us in evaluating. What worked and what didn’t work is important to know. The way you evaluate any event helps determine how well you do with similar events in the future.
Let’s say you want to evaluate a major event, such as Easter with some of your team. And I think you should.
(I also understand some will struggle with the word “Event” being used to describe Resurrection weekend. You can call it anything you want. I’m using the word so this idea can help you evaluate more than just Easter weekend.)
How do you structure the evaluation process so you capture feedback, which is helpful, but you aren’t just throwing out random ideas you will never implement? How do you gather plenty of information for future use, but keep the conversation from getting off track and becoming unproductive?
You need to script how you evaluate any event.
First, make sure the right people are in the room. I’ve done this in large and small settings, but you want voices at the table who can speak to most of what you were evaluating.
For example, if we were evaluating our Easter weekend, it would make no sense if the only ones evaluating were the worship team and me. We were on the platform most of the time or only in our worship center. You need people who observed how guests were treated, what was happening in our parking lots, if children were cared for and whether or not the bathrooms were kept clean.
Of this group, I also want positive-minded people who love the church and want to continue to see us improve – even if it means changing things in the future.
So, after the right people are in the room, here is a simple format I’ve done which helps the process move along to evaluate any event.
It’s simple, but it works.
I’ve often gone to the board and written an outline for us to follow – a script if you will – to guide our thoughts to evaluate effectively.
Write down each of the words in bold, ask the questions. You can think of better questions to add than I have. Feel free to list some in the comments of this post. Let people talk through each one.
Duplicate –
- What did we do well?
- Of all the things we did, what worked best?
- What do we know we want to do again next time?
The goal here is to talk about and discover those things, which need to be repeated next time. These things worked. They fully helped you live out your vision and the goals for the event. These are often the “no-brainers” and are usually easily drawn out from the discussion. Give people plenty of time here. This is part of the celebration.
Develop –
- What was good, but could be better?
- Where did we see the greatest energy, that with a little more effort could be huge?
- What do we know is a part of our values for the event — or for our church (or organization) — but it didn’t get enough attention?
This is one of the most important parts of the discussion. Here you want to discover things, which have the potential to really take your event to the next level – next time. Try to keep discussion centered only on the development of existing things you do at this point. You will get to new things in a minute.
By the way, you don’t want to add a ton of new things to an event unless what you did was terribly bad and you need to start completely over with all new. Most of the time developing what you currently do and making it better is easier for people’s tolerance to change and is more effective.
Dump –
- What do we not need to do again?
- Be honest, what didn’t work at all?
- What was the most draining effort, but produced little or no return for the investment?
- Simply put, what is tired, worn out, ready to be laid to rest before we do this again?
If dump is too strong a word for you, maybe use the word “delete”. The idea here is what do you need to not do next time? You need to discover what needs killing. Don’t be shy here.
This could be the hardest part of your discussion. This is where turf wars develop and feelings can come to the discussion, but you have to do it. If it didn’t work and it was expensive or labor-intensive, (and you have the leadership ability to navigate the change), consider getting rid of it next time.
The reason it’s so important is you can use the energy to pour into things you listed under the develop heading. You can’t do everything. Also, you don’t want to take too much away from people without giving them something back, which is even better.
Dream –
- What’s the wildest idea we could think of to do next time?
- If money was not an option, what would we do to make this better?
- What could we add next time that has the potential to be a “signature” aspect?
This is sometimes my favorite one. I wouldn’t suggest you put a ton of time into it – and don’t do it at all until you’ve done the others, but give some time to dreaming about the future. Honestly, I prefer the Develop one over this one as far as sustainability and productivity goes. Yet, some really great ideas can originate here.
Perhaps time this and stop when the ideas begin to turn really crazy. Allow people an opportunity to stretch the event into something no one has ever even imagined. You might even schedule a whole other meeting just for this one sometime in the near future. You should also create an atmosphere where wild, stretching ideas are welcome to be thrown on the table.
Also, the senior leader doesn’t have to be the moderator as you evaluate any event.
Depending on the group someone else may be better at this and let you participate more in the discussion.
Make sure someone is the recorder in the room. We sometimes write ideas under the words and take a picture of the board, but I always suggest someone record these ideas into a document of some kind. We frequently create a Google Doc, which we can share with others and store for later use. The more organized you are with your notes the more useful they will be next time you’re ready to do the event again.
Bonus idea: You can give out this form before the event begins so people can “evaluate an event” as they go.
Finally, I’d limit the time on this whole process. Maybe allot time to each one and then come back to them if you have time. It can grow stale if you linger too long in one of these discussions.
I hope this helps you evaluate any event. I’d love to hear from you if it does.
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