Step 6

Reflect on learning to improve delivery

Why is this step important?

  • Helps you reflect on findings and learning to adapt and improve delivery
  • Provides the tangible benefits of M&E - such as evidence that shows the impact you are having

What does this step involve?

  • Regularly review M&E data and reports
  • Adapt your delivery based on learning
  • Share findings and learning

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Tools and Resources

Outputs

  • Reflection Meeting Log
  • Learning Dissemination Plan

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purpose

Thinking about what has been learnt from measurement and evaluation (M&E) helps us to adapt and improve. Sharing results and findings with colleagues and other organisations can help them to be more effective. It can also give more credibility to your work.

Process

In Step 6 you'll use the findings from your M&E data collection and analysis to make improvements to your funding stream or project and share findings with others to improve understanding and knowledge within your organisation and throughout the wider sector.

1. Review M&E Data and Reports Regularly

Look at and discuss the M&E data that you are collecting and analysing, as described in Step 5, with colleagues and other stakeholders. It is a good idea to plan regular meetings to have these discussions. Think about whether the funding stream or project is working as you thought it would. This might include looking at:

  • Quantitative data (numbers): Are the figures for any activities, outputs or outcome measures significantly below or above what you thought they would be at that point in time?

  • Qualitative data (descriptive): Is there any information that can help you to understand why the figures are not what you expected, such as feedback from staff and people taking part?

TIP: Remember to look at all the things your data shows that could be of interest, not just the information that explains why the figures recorded are above or below expectations.

Conduct reflection meetings to review and discuss M&E findings at least every six months, if not more frequently, while the funding stream or project is running. Don’t wait until it's finished, as you might miss opportunities to make important changes that could help you achieve your intended outcomes.

We have developed a ‘Reflection Meeting Template’ to help guide the discussions you have in your reflection meetings and document your findings and learnings.

Recommended Action
1. Hold reflection meetings to look at and discuss the M&E data and reports with colleagues.

2. Document any key findings / learning in the ‘Reflection Meeting Template’.

2. Adapt Delivery Based on Learning

Whenever you review M&E findings, think about what you could change to make the funding stream or project more effective. This could be building on successes or tackling problems that you've identified. If you are managing a funding stream, this may involve working with individual projects that are under-performing, or it may involve changes to the whole funding stream.

You should also think about whether you need to improve the M&E arrangements:

  • Are you getting the right quality of information?
  • Is the data complete, or are there gaps?
  • Has qualitative or informal feedback shown any outcomes you didn’t expect? Could you start to measure these?

Recommended Action
Use the learning from your reflection meetings to adapt and make any necessary improvements to the delivery of your funding stream or project.

3. Share Findings and Learning

There are many ways that you can benefit from sharing the findings from your measurement and evaluation with other individuals, teams and organisations that may find it useful.

 


In addition to helping you show the impact of your work, M&E also provides individuals and organisations with valuable learning that can be used in a variety of ways, for example:

It’s also useful to share measurement and evaluation findings with other organisations to help them in their work. You can share evaluation studies by:

  • sending them directly to interested organisations

  • publishing them on your own website

  • hosting events to share and discuss the results

  • talking through the findings with individuals

  • some evaluation studies can be published in academic journals and/or shared at academic conferences

We have developed a ‘Learning Dissemination Plan’ template to help you consider and document which findings and learnings you should share and who you should share them with.

Recommended Actions
1. Use the 'Learning Dissemination Plan' template to document the key learnings from your M&E and how you will communicate these internally and externally.

2. Share M&E findings and learning with internal colleagues and teams to improve knowledge, skills and understanding.
3. Share M&E findings and learning with other relevant organisations to help improve the effectiveness of funding streams and projects throughout the sector.


Evidence of Outcomes

Sport England has completed a review of the evidence on the contribution of sport and physical activity to the five outcomes in the government's strategy for sport. We plan to update this review from time to time as the evidence base develops.

It is likely that some evaluation studies designed using this framework will feed into future updates of the evidence review.

Recommended Outputs

Output icon

Reflection Meeting Log

You should document any key learnings that come out of your reflection meetings / workshops. You can use the 'Reflection Meeting Log Template' to help structure these meetings and to document what is discussed.

Reflection Meeting LogOpens in new window
Output icon

Learning Dissemination Plan

To ensure that you are sharing and communicating relevant findings and learning to the right people, create a 'Learning Dissemination Plan', which will help you to define what you need to share, how and with whom.

Learning Dissemination PlanOpens in new window

Framework overview