Douglas Adams
The late satirical author Douglas Adams spun a yarn about a society determined to discover the meaning of life. After millennia, they had developed a computer so powerful it could provide the answer. Gathering around on that long anticipated day, the people waited for the computer to reveal the answer. It was 42. Puzzled and more than a little angry, the people wanted to know how this could be. The computer responded that the answer to the big question of the meaning of life, the universe and everything was most definitely 42, but as it unfortunately turned out neither the computer nor the people knew exactly what the question was.
A similar fate can befall evaluations, more than one of which has produced a precise answer to a question never framed or a question framed so vaguely as to be useless. It is easy enough to avoid this fate when you realize that, at its most basic level, evaluations address only three big questions: Can it work? Did it work? Will it work again? We call them “Can,” “Do,” and “Will” for short. Of course, we can ask other questions, but they tend to be in support of or in response to the big three. What good is asking, for example, “How does it work?” before you believe that it can, did or will? Continue reading →
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Douglas Adams
The late satirical author Douglas Adams spun a yarn about a society determined to discover the meaning of life. After millennia, they had developed a computer so powerful it could provide the answer. Gathering around on that long anticipated day, the people waited for the computer to reveal the answer. It was 42. Puzzled and more than a little angry, the people wanted to know how this could be. The computer responded that the answer to the big question of the meaning of life, the universe and everything was most definitely 42, but as it unfortunately turned out neither the computer nor the people knew exactly what the question was.
A similar fate can befall evaluations, more than one of which has produced a precise answer to a question never framed or a question framed so vaguely as to be useless. It is easy enough to avoid this fate when you realize that, at its most basic level, evaluations address only three big questions: Can it work? Did it work? Will it work again? We call them “Can,” “Do,” and “Will” for short. Of course, we can ask other questions, but they tend to be in support of or in response to the big three. What good is asking, for example, “How does it work?” before you believe that it can, did or will? Continue reading →
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