10 Laws Of Evaluation

I don't claim to have come up with these (apart from the last one), but I have searched the web and can't find it anywhere. So here are the laws of evaluation and monitoring:

1. The law of inverse attention
   This law states that the smallest expenditures should be subject to the greatest control and review procedures, and the largest expenditures should be subject to the least. The same is true of performance measures
2. The dream to reality ratio (or the law of diminishing attention)
   The biggest investment should be in dreams (planning and starting up projects) and only a modest investment made on reality (evaluating the results and closing the projects down). The ratio is usually 5:1. A corollary to this law states that buy-in by other stakeholders is most important in the dream stage and not when the activity starts to deliver results.
3. Strategy rules over experience
   This law states that it does not matter whether a project has been successful or not, merely whether it fits in with the latest strategy.
4. Fire, aim, ready
   This law requires that actions should be rationalised after being undertaken and not before.
5. The scale dependent nature of evidence requirements
   The larger the possible impact of a policy the less stringent the evidence requirements should be
6. The scale dependent nature of failure
   This law requires that small projects that show signs of failing to achieve their objectives should be closed down, as soon as possible. Large projects that show signs of failure should be given more money.
7. History began 3 years ago
   Staffing should be designed to ensure that no one has more than three years’ experience of delivery of the project. It is especially important that the staff who manage the project and those who designed it should not be the same.
8. Evaluators can't count
   Or they don't.