Course Overview

Real-Time Evaluation (RTE) delivers timely, actionable learning that helps teams improve programs and initiatives while they run. As adaptive management gains traction, more organizations use RTE to course-correct, stay relevant, and strengthen results in dynamic settings.

Teams now work in conditions shaped by climate change, pandemics, economic disruption, and conflict. In these environments, conventional evaluation can struggle to keep pace. RTE offers one approach within a broader family of rapid, complexity-responsive methods that prioritize immediate feedback and practical use. Related approaches include rapid-feedback evaluation, real-time learning, rapid assessment, rapid evaluation methods, and rapid rural appraisal.

Many organizations also want to use AI and machine learning to generate insight faster. RTE provides a decision-focused structure for putting evidence to work in real time. Its rapid cycles help teams clarify what decisions need support now, strengthen feedback loops, and build habits that make analytics, including AI-supported work, more useful and defensible.

In this course, participants build a practical foundation in RTE. They learn when to use it, how to plan and conduct it, and how to communicate findings quickly so decision makers can act. The course includes handouts and curated resources to support immediate application.

What You Will Learn

Participants learn what RTE is and how it relates to real-time learning and other rapid evaluation approaches. They examine the key drivers behind RTE’s uptake across sectors and explore common uses in practice. The course then guides participants through how to plan an RTE, define team roles and composition, select fit-for-purpose methods, and design reporting approaches that support timely use. It also equips participants with practical troubleshooting strategies for common challenges, such as shifting timelines, limited stakeholder access, and changing information needs midstream.

Course Format

The course is delivered through two virtual, instructor-led modules (or one day in-person). Participants who successfully complete both modules will receive a certificate of completion at the end of the course.

Module Breakdown

Module 1: RTE Overview, Planning, and Team Selection

The course begins with a clear introduction to real-time evaluation (RTE) and real-time learning, highlighting what distinguishes RTE from other rapid evaluation approaches. Participants examine RTE’s humanitarian origins and the key drivers behind its growing use beyond humanitarian contexts, including its role in supporting adaptive management and decision making. The module then focuses on planning an RTE—assessing its appropriateness, clarifying purpose, scope, and primary users, defining key elements of the terms of reference, and considering team composition—to ensure timely learning and practical action.

Module 2: RTE Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting

The second module focuses on how RTEs are carried out in practice. Participants examine methodologies suited to real-time constraints while still supporting credible learning, along with data collection options commonly used in RTE. The module also covers reporting and communication approaches that enable immediate use, including rapid feedback loops and decision-focused products. It concludes with troubleshooting to help participants anticipate challenges and identify practical responses as conditions change during implementation.

Who Should Attend

This course is appropriate for:

• Evaluation commissioners who want to understand when and how Real-Time Evaluation can support adaptive decision making
• Evaluation managers responsible for commissioning, overseeing, or using evaluations in dynamic or complex contexts
• Evaluators interested in expanding their toolkit to include rapid, learning-oriented, and complexity-responsive approaches
• Practitioners working in programs or initiatives where timely evidence is needed to inform ongoing implementation and course correction

Prerequisites

No prerequisites are required. Familiarity with evaluation or adaptive management concepts is helpful but not necessary.