I *love* program evaluation, but we all have the occasional frustration. Here are the most challenging parts of program evaluation for me personally:

• Data quality issues – when that report is due to the funder within 12 hours, and you just found out about the report being due, and half the data hasn’t been entered yet. It’s very hard to write a report when the data simply doesn’t exist in the database. I’ve got amazing software that can help me analyze just about anything, but I still haven’t found software that magically makes numbers appear…   🙂
• Satisfying everyone’s information needs without collecting a million pieces of data.
• Explaining what I do to non-evaluators in just one sentence. If they’ve got 60 seconds, I can make sure they leave with a pretty good understanding. Still struggling with the one-liner explanation…
• Learning about each content area I’m evaluating. Read more here.

What are the most challenging parts of program evaluation for you?