Resources
I get asked for recommendations of resources often, and it’s hard because there is a lot of incredible knowledge and new developments. Here are a few of my go-to suggestions:
Evaluation
Better Evaluation Website: www.bettereval.org
American Evaluation Association Guiding Principles for Evaluators, Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation, and Evaluator Competencies
Books on doing evaluation:
E Jane Davidson (2005) Evaluation Methodology Basics: The Nuts and Bolts of Sound Evaluation book published by SAGE
Veronica Thomas and Patricia Campbell (2020)’s Evaluation in Today’s World: Respecting Diversity, Improving Quality, and Promoting Usability published by SAGE
Donna Podems (2019) Being an Evaluator: Your Practical Guide to Evaluation published by Guilford Press
My favorite and the only of its kind to understand the evaluation field:
Thomas Schwandt’s (2015) Evaluation Foundations Revisited: Cultivating a Life of the Mind for Practice published by Stanford University Press
Systems Approaches, Complexity, and Systems Change
Bob Williams and Richard Hummelbrunner (2010) Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner’s Toolkit by Stanford University Press
Peter Barbrook-Johnson and Alex Penn (2022) Systems Mapping: How to Build and Use Causal Models of Systems published by Palgrave Macmillan (open access here)
The Open University’s Applied Systems Thinking in Practice Resources
Werner Ulrich’s website and work on critical systems thinking
Sheryl Petty and Mark Leach’s (2020 Systems Change & Deep Equity: Pathways Toward Sustainable Impact, Beyond “Eureka!,” Unawareness & Unwitting Harm
New Philanthropy Capital’s Systems Change: A Guide to What it is and How to Do It
Systems Innovation Initiative’s Learning Festival and Four Keys Framework
At the Systems-Evaluation-More Interface
Michael Quinn Patton’s books on Developmental Evaluation (2010), Principles-focused Evaluation (2017), and Blue Marble Evaluation (2019) published by Guilford Press
Magenta Book 2020 Supplementary Guide: Handling Complexity in Policy Evaluation
Oxfam From Poverty to Power Blogposts by Duncan Green and others
UNDP’s Innovative M&E From the Sandbox and Beyond by Søren Vester Haldrup with support from Samuel Tran