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Assess and improve your M&E system in 6 steps

M&E professionals in organizations of all sizes are asked to build Monitoring and Evaluation systems that support learning and accountability towards the people they serve and those who provide the resources enabling their work. Because of its importance, the M&E system should be assessed and, if necessary, improved to support the organization’s objectives efficiently.

The assessment helps you ensure that the components that are invaluable for its success exist and are implemented correctly. You can understand whether the implementation of the M&E system is achieving the expected results in terms of collecting, analyzing and using information. And lastly, via an assessment you can identify ways to strengthen the M&E system and improve it to achieve better results in the future.

In this quick guide, we look at six key steps to help you conduct an M&E system assessment and then act upon your key findings:

Determine the scale and scope of the M&E system
Identify the stakeholders
Set a timeline considering the budget cycle
Conduct the assessment
Report on the findings
Act on the findings

Finally, we share resources that can help you get started with the assessment. For more information, you can watch the recording of the Webinar “Assessing your Monitoring and Evaluation System”.

What is an M&E system? The set of people, processes and tools that work together to enable the collection, analysis and use of M&E information

Step 1: Determine the scale and scope of the M&E system

The first step is to determine for which level you will be assessing the M&E system. Based on the focus of its activities, the scale of the M&E system can be of different levels:

Project: Measures project results and indicators around project activities.
Program: Multiple projects contributing to program goals.
Organizational: Multiple programs across multiple sectors under one organizational/impact framework against which you measure the performance of the organization as a whole.
National: Comprehensive M&E system collecting data across different actors or responsible for different elements of a national program.

The higher the level, the greater the complexity can be, so consider the particularities of each level. For example, at the organizational level, you need to take into account the organizational structure and how decisions are made as the results of the assessment will need to be linked to the organizational strategy. At the national level, environmental factors such as the political situation, culture, or current legislation might affect the delivery of your activities and as a result the access to information and stakeholders.

Scope refers to the specific elements of the M&E system you wish to assess. FHI360 shares 12 domains of a functional M&E system including:

Processes: Plans and SOPs, Data security, Budgeting, Data systems, Data collection and management.
People: HR Capacity and management, M&E leadership, M&E system assessment, Learning and Evaluation.
Tools: Data quality assurance, Data analysis, use and feedback.

For a comprehensive assessment, include all components. But in case of limited resources, select the components your assessment will focus on.

Step 2: Identify the stakeholders

Then, select who will comprise the assessment team:

Core team: Leading the delivery of the assessment should be the people ultimately accountable for the delivery of the M&E system for your organization (e.g. M&E manager, IM manager, Data manager or Database specialist)
Contributors: Project or implementing staff involved in implementation of M&E activities who can provide inputs for the assessment (e.g. supportive documentation, evidence to support findings, qualitative feedback for context, etc.)

If an independent assessment is required due to donor requirements or scale, then a third party consultant or firm should be involved to lead or facilitate the activities.

Step 3: Set a timeline considering the budget cycle

Start of the project: Establish a baseline by doing an assessment at the beginning of the project to be able come back later to review changes over time and also discover critical elements missing early enough.
Reassessment: In multi-year projects or programs, it is useful to do this on an annual basis, but if you identified many significant gaps you might prefer to do it more frequently, at a six-months basis.
Budgeting cycle: The timeline should be linked to it because you might uncover gaps that would require financial investment so it’s good to have the findings and recommendations ready to build a case so as to secure a budget for the next cycle.

Did you join the project or organization at a later point? It’s still useful to do a baseline assessment as early as possible to collect measures that will help you understand and strengthen the Monitoring and Evaluation system.

Step 4: Conduct the assessment

Collect insights from all the stakeholders involved in the M&E system, combining these data collection methods:

Document review: Examine existing documents that explain how the M&E system is expected to work, including documents such as the ToC, MEAL framework, Results framework, list of indicators, reporting tools, etc.
Interviews: Capture qualitative insights so as to get more explanations and nuance on things that work or don’t work.
Surveys: Useful for larger program teams or organizations to collect more robust evidence to support the findings gathered.

Then, reach a Performance Rating to indicate how well the M&E system is performing based on the scope and components selected. You can use a rating scale to give a quantitative score to each component and include a qualitative component to explain how the score was achieved.

There exist various tools that can help you conduct the assessment and get the rating for each component based for example on yes or no questions, such as the M&E Systems Assessment Guide by FHI 360.

Step 5: Report on the findings

Following the assessment, it’s time for a report on the findings. An assessment report should contain:

Methodology: Explain the scale and scope, data collection methods used, who was involved, questions included.
Findings: Explain the final performance rating that the M&E system was given, provide the rationale or justification, identify strengths, gaps, and weaknesses to address.
Action plan: This is a list of recommendations based on the strengths and weaknesses identified, make sure to specify interventions to implement including how, who and when.

Step 6: Act on the findings

Once you have a list of recommendations, you can create a course of action. Here are some examples of actions based on potential assessment findings:

Key people or knowledge missing: Recruit key staff or provide training.
Ambiguity on processes: Create documentation to enhance existing processes or SOPs to crystallize what needs to be happening.
Outdated or missing tools: Update old systems, develop new tools, create information products to disseminate knowledge.
Gaps in technology stack: Invest in technology to make the M&E system more efficient. The ActivityInfo team can support you in this.

Specify people responsible, timelines and budget to make the plan as concrete and actionable as possible. Determine how progress will be measured and how you will ensure that the approach remains participatory.

Did you end up with an assessment that shows that your M&E system doesn’t need any improvement? You can still benefit from the exercise as you can now try to replicate this across more teams or projects or even at a larger scale (e.g. from a project to program level).

For more information on M&E system assessments, you can watch the recording of the Webinar “Assessing your Monitoring and Evaluation System”.

Did you identify a gap in your technological stack? You can always contact us to discuss how ActivityInfo can help you implement a robust information management system to support all the components of your M&E system.