Course Overview

Evaluation facilitation is a specialized practice that blends core facilitation techniques with the unique interpersonal dynamics of evaluation contexts. The goal is to enhance the relevance, credibility, and utility of evaluation by improving how evaluators engage with stakeholders.

This course builds foundational skills in evaluation facilitation, aligning with the Interpersonal Domain of the American Evaluation Association’s evaluator competencies. Participants will explore how facilitation intersects with cultural competence, communication, power, trust-building, and conflict resolution. Each of these is essential for supporting effective, ethical, and inclusive evaluations.

What You Will Learn

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply interpersonal facilitation techniques in evaluation
• Build trust, foster participation, and promote shared decision-making
• Manage conflict constructively and navigate power dynamics
• Strengthen cultural responsiveness and evaluative thinking
• Adapt facilitation strategies to complex or evolving stakeholder environments

These competencies support the evaluator’s ability to:

• Foster positive relationships for evaluation use
• Listen and engage across perspectives
• Facilitate shared decision-making and culturally responsive interaction
• Communicate meaningfully and manage conflict effectively
• Recognize and respond to the effects of power and privilege in evaluation practice

(Source: AEA Interpersonal Competencies)

Course Format

This course is delivered via four live, online instructor-led sessions (or two days in-person – depending on instructor availability). Each module includes interactive discussion, real-world examples, reflection exercises, and opportunities for applied learning. A certificate of completion will be provided to all participants who successfully complete the course.

Module Breakdown

Module 1: Evaluation Facilitation Overview — Dimensions, Skills, and Steps

This opening session introduces five core steps of group facilitation, adapted specifically for evaluation. Participants will explore how to frame roles and responsibilities, clarify power dynamics, and apply facilitation behaviors that are active, reactive, interactive, and adaptive. The session includes a facilitator self-assessment. Participants will reflect on their own experiences and examine real examples, including common facilitation failures as learning opportunities.

Module 2: Five Operating Principles for Evaluation Facilitation

This module presents five guiding principles of evaluation facilitation, illustrated with examples and discussion:

1. Be guided by the personal factor
2. Engage through options
3. Observe, interpret, and adapt
4. Embed evaluative thinking in all aspects of facilitation
5. Invigorate with leading-edge inputs

Module 3: Facilitation Issues and Adaptation

This session explores common facilitation challenges. Topics include: building evaluation capacity, understanding how less can be more, going slowly to go fast, staying mindful, treating whatever happens as data, adapting to what emerges, and using authority sparingly but effectively.

Module 4: Facilitation Cases and Opportunities for Practice

The final module is practice-based. Participants will work through facilitation cases and exercises to apply their learning. The group will share insights and generate effective practices through discussion and reflection.

Who Should Attend

This course is ideal for:

• Evaluators looking to strengthen interpersonal and facilitation skills
• Evaluation team leads and managers
• Internal and external evaluators working with diverse stakeholders
• Anyone seeking to build trust and engagement through facilitation

Prerequisites

No prior facilitation experience is required. All course materials will be provided.