ENVM7003 Chap.10 Program Logic, Monitoring and Evaluation
Program Logic, Monitoring and Evaluation
A program logic model sets out the route by which an initiative is meant to deliver change, chaining what the project does to what it produces and then to shifts at three horizons. It is an account of the mechanism a designer believes is at work. The word believes is doing the work: the model sets out an expected causal pathway and does not prove that the pathway holds.
The same idea travels under other names, including theory of change.
A programme here is anything that aims to effect change: a policy, a grant scheme, a service or a project, from a single-site initiative to a whole-of-government reform. The model is built backwards.
State the outcome you want, ask what must be delivered for it to be plausible, ask what the project must do to deliver that, and ask what resources are needed. Then read it forwards and interrogate every link: does each step make sense, what are you assuming, and are those assumptions likely to be true.
Only after that do you decide monitoring, which asks whether the project is on track, and evaluation, which asks whether it made a difference.
What this chapter covers
- 01
10.1 What counts as a programme, and what a logic model claims
- 02
10.2 Aim, long, medium and short-term outcomes distinguished
- 03
10.3 Building the chain backwards from the change you want
- 04
10.4 Outputs against outcomes, and the error that follows from confusing them
- 05
10.5 Assumptions as joints, and which ones the project controls
- 06
10.6 Monitoring, evaluation and indicators you can actually collect
A chain, its assumptions and its measurement plan
- +3Long-term outcome first. Riverside precincts stay usable and ecologically functional as visitor numbers grow.
- +2Medium-term outcome. Operators and the managing authority apply the agreed standards without enforcement action.
- +2Short-term outcome. Operators know what the standards require and can identify what would need to change at their own site.
- +2Outputs, then activities, then resources. A published standard, a briefing to every operator, a baseline record; drafting, briefing, measuring; a coordinator, equipment, regulatory officers and operators' time.
- +3Attach the questions to layers. Briefings delivered against planned is monitoring at the output layer; repeat measurement at the same fixed points is evaluation at the medium outcome.
Key terms
- Theory of change
- Another name for the same model, naming the route a designer believes runs from what a project does to the change it seeks.
- Aim
- The wider change a project is meant to help along. It normally exceeds what any single project could deliver on its own, which is why it sits above the long-term outcome.
- Short-term outcome
- A first shift among the people, agencies or systems the project touches, whether in what they know, what they can do, how they see something, who they deal with, or what they do.
- Medium-term outcome
- A step that has to land before the far end of the chain becomes plausible. Most evaluation effort goes here, because it is the last layer still measurable inside a project.
- Assumption
- Something taken as given about why one step leads to the next. Assumptions are what make a logic model a proposal rather than a demonstration.
- Indicator
- A piece of evidence you can gather that shows whether the work ran, whether the product exists, or whether the intended shift is appearing.
- Monitoring
- Ongoing checking of whether a project is on track to meet its goals, usually at the activity and output layers.
- Evaluation
- Assessment of whether a project made a difference and achieved its intended outcomes over the short, medium and long term.
Program Logic, Monitoring and Evaluation FAQ
What is the difference between monitoring and evaluation?
Monitoring asks whether the project is on track to meet its goals, so it watches activities and outputs while the project runs. Evaluation asks whether the project made a difference and delivered its intended outcomes. The two answer different questions and need different evidence, which is why a project can be perfectly monitored and never evaluated.
What is the difference between an output and an outcome?
An output is the direct product or service an activity delivers, so it reports delivery rather than effect. An outcome is a change in people, organisations or systems. Eighty people attending six workshops is an output; those people being more confident to participate afterwards is an outcome.
Why do assumptions matter so much in a logic model?
Because the model lays out a route change is expected to take rather than one anybody has demonstrated. Every arrow between boxes is an assumption wearing a line, and the project can usually influence only some of them. Drawing the assumptions between the boxes makes visible which links the project controls and which it can only hope for and disclose.
How do I choose indicators?
By relevance and by collectability together. An indicator that captures the outcome perfectly and nobody can collect within the project's resources is worse than a reasonable one somebody will actually record. Participation rates, measured changes in knowledge and evidence of community recommendations appearing in plans are the course's own examples of the second kind.
Do I build the model forwards or backwards?
Backwards, then check it forwards. Start from the outcome you are trying to achieve, ask what must be delivered or produced, then what the project needs to do, then what resources that requires. Building forwards from available resources produces a description of what you were going to do anyway with an outcome attached at the end.
Assessment move
Draw the chain on one sheet with the assumptions written between the boxes rather than in a footnote, because that is the version that shows you where the project is exposed. Then write the monitoring and evaluation questions on the same sheet, each one labelled with the layer it tests.
Groups lose marks here by producing a tidy chain and a generic measurement paragraph that could belong to any project; the labelling is what ties the two together.
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