How do you report coaching evaluation results?

1 Know your audience

Before you start writing your report, you need to know who will read it and what they expect from it. Different audiences may have different levels of interest, knowledge, and influence on your coaching outcomes. For example, your clients may want to see how coaching helped them achieve their goals, while their managers may want to see how coaching improved their performance or behavior. Therefore, you need to tailor your report to suit your audience's needs and preferences. You can use different formats, such as executive summaries, dashboards, graphs, or case studies, to highlight the most relevant and compelling information for each audience.

2 Define your purpose

Another important step is to define the purpose of your report. What are you trying to communicate and why? What are the key messages and recommendations you want to convey? How do you want your audience to react or respond to your report? By clarifying your purpose, you can focus your report on the most important and meaningful aspects of your coaching evaluation. You can also use your purpose as a guide to structure your report and organize your content logically and coherently.

3 Use a framework

A framework is an invaluable tool for planning, designing, and executing a coaching evaluation. While there are many frameworks to choose from, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, they typically share common elements. These include the context and background of your coaching intervention, the objectives and indicators, the methods and data sources used for evaluation, the results and findings, conclusions and implications as well as recommendations and actions for improvement or sustainability. By using a framework, you can ensure that your report covers all essential aspects of your coaching evaluation in a clear and logical way.

4 Use evidence and data

One of the main goals of your report is to demonstrate the value and impact of your coaching intervention. To do this, you need to use evidence and data from various sources such as feedback, surveys, assessments, tests, interviews, performance and behavioral data, and financial and organizational data from your clients and stakeholders. By relying on evidence and data, you can showcase how your coaching intervention led to changes and improvements in your clients and stakeholders. Additionally, it can be used to compare results with objectives and indicators, as well as identify gaps and areas for improvement.

5 Use visuals and stories

Another way to make your report more engaging and persuasive is to use visuals and stories. Visuals, such as graphs, charts, tables, or infographics, can help you present your data in a more attractive and understandable way. They can also help you highlight the key trends, patterns, or insights from your data. Stories, such as case studies, anecdotes, or scenarios, can help you illustrate the real-life benefits and challenges of your coaching intervention. They can also help you connect with your audience on an emotional and personal level.

By using visuals and stories, you can make your report more memorable and impactful. You can also use visuals and stories to complement and reinforce your evidence and data, and to show how your coaching intervention made a difference for your clients and stakeholders.

6 Review and refine

Before sharing your report with your audience, it's essential to review and refine it. You should check if your report addresses the purpose and the audience's needs, follows a framework and covers all the essential elements, uses evidence and data to support claims and conclusions, and uses visuals and stories to enhance messages and recommendations. Additionally, ensure that the language used is simple, precise, consistent, active, positive, respectful, and grammatically correct. Moreover, you should review the format of your report to make sure it has a clear and attractive layout with headings, subheadings, bullets or numbers to organize your content. Furthermore, use fonts, colors or images to highlight your content. By reviewing and refining your report you can ensure it meets the quality and professionalism standards of your coaching practice and use feedback from peers, mentors or experts to improve it.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?