Gather Information

Information gathering refers to amassing information about the issue youre facing and the ways
other organizations and communities have addressed it. The more information you have about
the issue itself and the ways it has been approached, the more likely you are to be able to devise
an efficacious program or intervention of your own.
Information gathering and synthesis is crucial to the prosperity of the program and to the
pertinence and efficacy of the evaluation. It should commence at the commencement of any
effort, and contribute to the initial orchestrating. It should additionally go on throughout the life
of the program, so that you can perpetuate to adjust by integrating or transmuting program
elements to enhance outcomes, and to engender incipient conceptions.
Major changes should generally come at the terminus of an evaluation cycle, when you have
solid information about what worked and what didnt. That doesnt denote that you cant make
more minuscule adjustments in the course of the program to amend results along the way.
Theres a tension here between continually transmuting a program to make it more suitable and
obtaining precise evaluation results. If you transmute a method or activity in midstream, your
evaluation will not be able to give you a clear assessment of its efficacy.
How much transmuting you do in the course of a program depends on your intent. If your first
responsibility is to ascertain what works best, so you can pass it on, then its consequential not to
make changes until an evaluation has been consummated. If your primary responsibility is to the
current participants in the program, then you should make whatever changes are compulsory
whenever theyre indispensable to ascertain the best outcome for them.
There can be ethical issues involved here. In medical experiments with incipient therapies or
drugs, for example, some participants are given the incipient treatment and others arent (all
participants consent to this arrangement, and to not knowing which group theyll be assigned to.)
If the incipient treatment proves to be inimical, there is an ethical obligation for the researchers
to stop administering it. If, on the other hand, it expeditiously proves remarkably efficacious,
researchers customarily feel ethically bound to elongate it to others in the study as anon as they
can prove its positive effects. Not all programs obligatorily pose ethical quandaries that are as

pellucid-cut as those encountered in medical studies, but ethical issues should always be
considered.
In order to determine the requirement of a system, information must be accumulated from the
customer. Ideally, the information obtained will enable a well-defined, precise, and consummate
description of how the business functions as well as the people, functions and data involved.
However, this is not always the case, and information is often misinterpreted or omitted entirely.
There are many ways that can be apply when amassing information. The type of information you
are trying to obtain, as well as the people providing the information, will determine which
techniques you should utilize.
The old methods of gathering information are interviews, questioning, questionnaires,
observation, and study of existing organizational document, forms and reports.
Old methods are usually used when the overall objective is clear and requirements are well
defined. In addition, methods such as questioning and interviewing are generally regarded as
the only choice for particular phases such as the initial contact.
Brainstorming provides a free and open environment that encourage everyone to participate.
Quirky ideas are welcomed and build upon, and all participants are encouraged to contribute
fully, helping them develop a rich array of creative solutions.
When used during problem solving, brainstorming brings team members diverse experience into
play. It increases the richness of ideas explored, which means that you can often find better
solutions to the problems that you face.
It can also help you to get buy-in from team members for the solution chosen after all, theyre
likelyto be more committed to an approach if they were involved in developing it. Whats more,
because brainstorming is fun, it helps team members bond, as they solve problem in a positive,
rewarding environment.