Transforming evaluation from measurement to learning catalyst
Our Philosophy
Networked organizations are based on the idea that we are better together.
Whether it’s a public health unit that works across communities, a professional membership organization creating advocacy strength and communities of practice, a primary care network plugged into a healthcare context, or a research network of excellence, evaluation requires an approach that is built for networks and living systems, not static products.
Networked organizations are living systems, and need evaluations designed for them.
Design-Driven Evaluation
Our approach is built on the Design-Driven Evaluation model — a framework developed at Cense that treats evaluation not as something you add to a program, but as something you design into it from the start as part of a system.
We have evaluated international networks of discovery and communities of practice, created national strategies for health and wellbeing, and supported networked organizations to learn, grow, and engage their members. Our design-driven approach ensures that evaluation is used to help shape and work with the systems you’re a part of, to ensure you’re effective as well as engage the members and networks you’re connected to.
The Cense Difference
Most evaluators are trained in measurement. We’re trained in measurement and design — which means we think about how findings will be used before we decide what to measure. We also bring behavioural science to our work, so we know what moves people and what influences behaviour. That changes everything about how an evaluation is structured.
We also work exclusively in health and human services, which means we understand the constraints your programs operate under — the funding pressures, the political sensitivities, the gap between what a logic model says and what actually happens on the ground. We don’t need that context explained to us.
And because complex programs rarely behave as a standard evaluation framework expects, we draw on methods built for that reality — developmental evaluation, systems-oriented approaches, and after-action processes that turn experience into insight rather than just documentation.
Beyond Data to Meaning
We’ve worked with networked organizations to support their strategy and evaluation activities across a variety of contexts.
Public Health Pandemic Transitions
We supported four public health units in Ontario to transition out of their pandemic response and used design-driven evaluation approaches to inform that work. These four units represented more than 3 million people and some of the most complex and hardest hit regions of the province. We gathered and synthesized data (including surveys, interviews, observations, and document reviews) to support a transition plan to take the best innovations and lessons learned from the pandemic and integrate them into standard practice. Data was also used as a means to reconnect staff to their projects, their work, and each other as part of a debriefing and healing initiatives led by the Cense team.
Building transdisciplinary communities of practice
Dr. Cameron Norman in collaboration with researchers, practice leaders, and policymakers developed a multi-year foundation for a global community of practice in eHealth and tobacco control. This work connected a series of workshops and community development strategies to a robust systems-focused evaluation that was published in the leading journal, Implementation Science. That work later informed a five-year initiative that explored how a problem-based scientific network model could be used to innovate and transform health sciences research at the University of British Columbia. To read more about this published work in the American Journal of Evaluation and Research Evaluation.
Building a sustainable model for enviromental impact
When you are an organization devoted to environmental sustainability and protection in healthcare, your evaluation models need to reflect your practice. We worked with the Coalition For Green Healthcare to create a developmental evaluation strategy to enable them to assess and learn about the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) projects being undertaken in Canadian hospitals both before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our work with the Green Healthcare team produced an evaluation framework, sensemaking model, and sustainable methods for assessing PPE programs.
Ready to Transform Your Story?
If your organization is looking to tell a better story using data to engage its membership and support its impact using evidence, let’s talk.
Together, let’s design an evaluation that serves your mission and tells your story.
