Outcome measures are a more appropriate indicator of effectiveness. Outcomes quantify performance and assess the success of the process. Outputs e. Nor does it demonstrate how the lives of the customers were impacted. Outcomes answer questions, such as:. Too often social sector organizations are only measuring outputs and they think they are doing enough. Sometimes a perception that it is too hard or impossible to measure outcomes stops leaders from collecting key outcomes data.
This faulty thinking makes it difficult for organizations to demonstrate to funders how their organization is achieving their mission. It also means that organizations are making decisions that may not be directly related to the quality and impact of their services. Understanding your outcomes will inspire positive change and advancement. Outcomes are about performance levels. Over recent years this approach has been increasingly questioned as being too concerned with efficiency considerations, without a corresponding focus on what benefits are actually arising from program funding and activities.
Increasingly the trend is moving towards a focus on the specification and achievement of outcomes, revealing more about how effective programs are in achieving real development changes on-the-ground. Outputs are the goods and services that result from activities.
Outcomes are the constructive impacts on people or environments. This enables us to tell our partners, funders and stakeholders about what the program does, the services it provides, how it is unique, and who it serves. We can describe and count our activities and the different goods and services we produce. Now, however, we are being asked what difference it makes!
This is a question about outcomes see figure. Outcomes are the changes, benefits, learning or other effects that happen as a result of what the program offers or provides.
Outcomes are usually specified in terms of either: i social and organizational capacities social outcomes — e. While most people intuitively appreciate this distinction between outputs and outcomes, experience in results-oriented training sessions suggests that for many program staff, turning that appreciation into practice takes time. As the Keystone guide points out it takes most people quite a lot of conscious practice before they start thinking in terms of outcomes, rather than outputs or needs or activities.
You need to use achieving a specific outcome as a way of deciding what to deliver, and you need to remember to learn with short feedback cycles.
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Share 6. But first, a quick review on what I mean but outcome over output. The benefits of focusing on outcome over output There are several reasons I encourage teams and organizations to focus on outcome.
You have more flexibility When you focus on outcomes, your main definition of scope is delivering that outcome, or more precisely hitting the target value of your outcome based metric. I hear you. Focusing on outcomes is hard. Focusing on outputs is comparatively easy It can be difficult to come up with a meaningful outcome based metric that your team can measure and tell when your actions have an impact.
So the idea of continuing to work on the same thing after a delivery seems rather foreign. What are the issues, constraints, and priorities that are important to them? Understand what causes them inconvenience, what costs more than it should, what takes more time and effort than necessary. Armed with this information, you can shift your focus to the outputs activities that make positive changes in these areas. It is important to understand the difference in these terms not just for clarity, but because outputs are much easier to measure than outcomes.
Remember that outputs are simply a means to an end. All reports and dashboards are showing green, but when you delve deeper, reports on the achievements of your outcomes are all red: your customers are not happy. Now, I am certainly not suggesting that you no longer need to report on the achievement of IT outputs. Not at all. Instead, you need to express these outputs in terms that the business understands—showing exactly how they contribute to the business outcomes.
This provides clear business context and shows the value that IT outputs deliver.
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