The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.
Thales of Miletus (624—546 BC)
Greek philosopher
You might think that an Evaluation Sheet is merely part of the logistical preparation. It is not! Evaluation is an integral part of the planning process. We recommend taking it seriously. The feedback of your participants is very valuable as it improves not only your future planning. From the feedback you receive you will be able to learn and to improve yourself. The quality of your events increases and your market value will rise.
Remember: Feedback is the breakfast for champions. Only by experience and constant improvement we rise to new levels.
Thus, again leading a workshop gives you the experience and knowledge to become a leader in other ares of life, too.
Three Areas of Evaluation
Usually, an Evaluation Sheet compromises three sections:
- Logistics such as accommodation, seminar room, food etc.
- Moderation and content
- Free area for comments
Logistics
Because people are constantly asked to give their opinion on services (hotels, restaurants, airlines etc.) and as the participants will be filling in the Evaluation Sheet just before going home, they will want to be quick. Thus, make it easy to understand and quick to fill in. This means structure it with very little text!
We recommend to take in few areas:
- accommodation (if applicable)
- food
- venue
- travel (if applicable)
- workshop organization
- pre-workshop communication
Moderation & Content
If you have several facilitators, it’s useful to separate the feedback for each one of them. This allows you to pass the feedback on to them and decide whom you will use for future events.
Choose what are important questions for you to get answered. You can also get inspired by the six balances in a group.
- Content vs. Process
- Workshop was too long vs. too short
- Moderator was too strict vs. no control
- etc.
Free Areas in a Evaluation Sheet
This is a must! On one hand you might have something out, which is important for the participants to express. On the other hand by free comments you often get the best ideas. To collate the free area for a report is more work (often it’s difficult to decipher the handwriting) but it’s worth it.
Branding
Like any other handout or workshop material also the evaluation sheet is yet another chance to brand yourself. Don’t miss it out! Use your logo, type it in your corporate font, have the right values for your color etc. It will be immediately recognizable as one of your papers, something coming from you.
Remember: branding works by repetition, the more the better.
Evaluation Summary
If you are working for a client it is a good idea to collate all the Evaluation Sheets in a single document. This will allow you to see the feedback at a glance. Furthermore, it is an excellent business card (assuming that the results are good) as well as a measurement system for your improvement. Don’t get depressed when not everybody liked your session. It’s important to meet the needs of a majority. There will always be individuals who do not agree with the majority. It’s not possible to please everybody.
For summing the results up we recommend to convert the first two sections into an excel sheet. This allows you to display the feedback graphically. From the free area for comments you type in the comments as a bullet list. If there are too many prioritize. But don’t choose only the positive ones. Accept – and share with your customer, too – that there were things which could have done better. For example, the workshop room was not big enough. So, agree with your customer that for the next time you have to choose another venue. Or: too much content for too less time. This will also give your customer the idea that the workshop or seminar was too packed and you have to prioritize the content.
