I was recently on holidays in Majorca (easy to do when living in London – not so easy from Australia!) where we stayed overlooking a lovely Mediterranean beach called Cala Esmerelda.

Now this is where I say something along the lines of while I was on holiday I was thinking about evaluation and had a ‘light bulb moment’ – except that didn’t happen at all! I was thinking about when I was going to have my next icecream, when the next swim was and did I want red or white wine with dinner.

That being said, the day we were leaving, a survey was left on the table for us to fill out about our experience at the resort. Being a sympathetic evaluator, I was compelled to fill it out, although I can imagine that many people intent on squeezing the last bit out of their holiday wouldn’t take the time. I wondered how many forms were filled out and whether the resort took action on the feedback they received? Was it worth their while?

Now I don’t know what other type of evaluation this resort does, but if this is it, at least they are doing something to find out what the end-user (us) thinks and hopefully acting on it. To me it demonstrates a frame of mind and it means that the organisation (hopefully) is thinking about improving.

In my opinion having some sort of evaluation is better than having none. Of course nothing beats a well-designed evaluation program feeding directly into organisational goals (and this may well be the case at the resort we visited), but being in the right headspace and seeking some sort of feedback is where it all starts.