Crossing the Threshold

Once the critical delivery threshold has been crossed, it ‚ s time to deal with the next step in the financial value process: evaluate results. That ‚ s the focus of step 8 in the financial value process. One of the most underestimated areas in gaining a seat at the table is how much of a difference regularly measuring your value makes in your stature and your credibility. If regular measurement is underestimated, then one of the most misunderstood areas in communicating the value of WLP interventions is that once a commitment is made to measure, different levels of your audience require different types of data from different forms of evaluation. One size does not fit all.

When communicating your value, making the mistake of not gathering the data at all or mismatching the type of data to the level of your audience can lead to failure. If you don ‚ t provide the data that your audience is subconsciously expecting at their level and in the audience ‚ s terms, you ‚ re leaving the audience to draw its own conclusions. Just as in the game of Rumor described in chapter 2, those conclusions may not be anything like what you think they ought to be.

Important ‚  

To communicate your value, you need to remain in control of how you will prove your value. After having achieved so much in identifying and delivering value, the last thing you want to do is to fall short in your communications by not understanding the need for and appropriate use of evaluation data.

So, just what type of evaluation data does each level of your audience need? It might not be what you would expect.