AES 22 conference reflections - day 3

The final day of #AES22ADL kicked off a provocative session by Amy Gullickson , talking bravely about soul and evaluation. ?She spoke about the anxiety surrounding evaluation and how this leads to frenzy (she called it frenzied piranhas!) or senseless activity (which looks like hundreds of indicators and a data deluge).

Maybe it’s because of this that evaluation has not been effective in helping save the world. She suggests that maturity in self has the potential to stop this cycle. Mature entities can hold tension while staying within their own parameters – with well-defined purpose and self-care.

If anxiety occurs, overreach tends to happen, for example, the evaluator doing the client’s work. Or the opposite - underreach or passive behaviour.

To reach balance, she suggested we focus on self, stay connected and be curious. This frees up energy to explore new directions. Time to be more thoughtful. Her session reminded me of the #InnerDevelopmenGoals movement and connections to how to be a good ally. Very thought-provoking - and yes, I am personally guilty of overreaching.

Later in the day, I went to many excellent sessions. I heard about evaluators re-framing their whole evaluation approach mid-stream to incorporate systems thinking. There were several great examples of evaluation being baked right into the start of an initiative with developmental, formative and summative phases. And also inspiring examples of rapid evaluation and great ways to speed up when we need to.

The last plenary opened the floor to reflect on what is sitting with us, and what can we do about it. I shared my final thoughts on the whole conference here.

Kiri Parata , our fantastic president, closed the conference with grace, and then it was over.