Building Evaluation in the Main Stream

The process of building evaluation in large institutional settings is presented in the context of a fundamental intervention assumption and its attendant implications. “Feedback from evaluation research is most useful if it is asked for by those who are intended to use it,” is the assumption used as a backdrop to help describe evaluation programs in the New Zealand Ministry of Works and Development and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The assumption and implications are presented first as generic concerns, then as illustrated through the specific case studies, and finally in terms of future directions in building evaluation research. The entire article is an elaboration on the idea that building evaluation has a central role to play in institutional development and maintenance.