Assessing the achievement of objectives

At the end of a project there is an evaluation which judges if aims and objectives have been achieved. The extent or level of such an achievement will be assessed by self-evaluation (insider evaluation) or an evaluation carried out by external evaluators (outside evaluation). In order to conclude a project in a satisfactory way it is important to carry out a collective final assessment meeting during the last phase. This provides an opportunity to reflect on the last phase and on the achievement of the project objectives in general.

In addition to interpreting results on the basis of the available objective data, the team members' individual subjective experiences must also be taken into account. In the final assessment meeting team members may express and reflect on both positive and negative experiences, the way they feel about work within the team or the use of resources. Important findings and conclusions should be recorded in the final report.

Usually, a project achieves intended and unintended effects on various levels. Intended effects or outcomes can be checked against the indicators that have been defined for each objective. However, given the complexity both of the intervention and of the social system where the intervention takes place, it is rarely possible to attribute observed effects unequivocally to particular measures that have been implemented by the project. It is only possible to explain effects with some degree of plausibility. Unintended effects must also be incorporated in the evaluation. They may be found on various levels and are relevant for the global assessment of a project. Careful context description is important when documenting and interpreting effects, so that the reported outcomes become fully understandable. Such a description also makes clear that all effects are context dependent.