Process is the “how”.

Recently,  reminded of the fact that process is the “how”, I had the opportunity to help develop a Vision

and a Mission statement.

The person who was facilitating the session provided the group with clear guidelines.

The Vision statement, defined as “the desired future condition”, will happen in 2-5 years (i.e., What will change?). We defined the change occurring (i.e., in the environment, the economy, the people). The group also identified what future conditions would be possible. We would write the vision statement so that it would happen within 2-5 years, be practical, be measurable, and be realistic. OK…

And be short…because that is what vision statements are.

The Mission statement (once the Vision statement was written and accepted) defined “HOW” we would get to the vision statement. This reminded me of process–something that is important in evaluation. So I went to my thesaurus to find out what that source said about process. Scriven  to the rescue, again.

Process Evaluation

Scriven, in his Evaluation Thesaurus,  defines process as the activity that occurs “…between the input and the output, between the start and finish”. Sounds like “how” to me. Process relates to process evaluation. I suggest you read the section on process evaluation on page 277 in the above mentioned source.

Process evaluation rarely functions as the sole evaluation tool because of weak connections between “output quantity and quality”. Process evaluations will probably not generalize to other situations.

However, PROCESS evaluation “…must be looked at as part of any comprehensive evaluation, not as a substitute for inspection of outcomes…” The factors include “the legality of the process, the morality, the enjoyability, the truth of any claims involved, the implementation…, and whatever clues…” that can be provided.

Describing “how ” something is to be done is not easy. It is not output nor outcome.  Process is the HOW something will be accomplished if you have specific inputs . It happens between the inputs and the outputs.

To me, the group needs to read about process evaluation in crafting the mission statement in order to get to the HOW.

my two        .

molly.