OUTCOME & AMBITION

This week we learn from four new agencies who answer the question:

• How does project evaluation help you, client, or the audience measure effectiveness of the project’s final outcome?

FELD

FELD believes project evaluations or debriefs to be highly valuable. They look at this as “lessons learned.” What worked or what didn’t work on a project. Or what would you do differently. Moreover, they see that the debrief part of the project provides the necessary space to effectively reflect on the project in order to best present is significance and narrative. When you’re deep in the project, it is more difficult to see the bigger picture. Evaluation helps to reveal or remind us of that bigger picture.

ACCEPT & PROCEED

Accept & Proceed’s project evaluations vary by client. They tend to simplify the evaluation process down to whether or not they get repeat work from a given client. That is their litmus test for success. I personally see that as a portion of the key aspects of a debrief or evaluation, but not the sole input of valuable project reflection.

STUDIO DUMBAR

Studio Dumbar debriefs projects with the client in person and again via anonymous survey. They share the results of that evaluation with the entire project team and immediately respond to anything that they see as an opportunity to improve, especially if it is in regard to client relationships. Rarely, when budgets allow, they will seek out more scientific methods of evaluation including cognitive biofeedback studies where subjects are connected to electrodes that read brainwaves as they are asked questions about a given project.

EDENSPIEKERMANN

EdenSpiekermann’s branding projects can run for a very long time with year-long launch plans making it difficult to seek client evaluation. Their digital projects conversely provide immediate results. They debrief their projects to reflect on what worked or didn’t, how they can improve their processes, and to determine whether or not they met the needs of the brief by solving what they set out to solve.

The takeaway here for me is that there is a wide range of inputs methods that you can obtain when a project concludes. The key is to reflect and learn in order to improve and grow.

REFERENCE

Falmouth University (2018). Outcome & Ambition | Interviews. Application and Interactions GDE740 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S1 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)