Making your data work: getting it right from the start & what to do if you didn’t

Every organisation working across monitoring, reporting, and evaluation ends up holding data built for more than one job. Contract management data. Monitoring data. Reports back to a funder. Each was designed to answer a specific question, and each has limits that only show up once you try to stretch it beyond that. An evaluation, a business case, or a funding argument built on the wrong dataset can fall over exactly when it matters most.

Designing your data collection intelligently from the start can make analysing and reporting easier, more accurate, and most importantly, credible.

But what can you do with data you already have; what additional value can you validly squeeze out of it without committing egregious data crimes?

This webinar walks you through how to design good data collection practices, some good data hygiene principles, and how to wrangle those historical datasets to fit a purpose it was never intended for.

Using an example of a fictional organisation working through its own data journey, we'll bring examples of good (and bad) data collection and analysis to life across the session.

What you'll learn:

• What does good data looks like for common reporting purposes

• Data quality mistakes, and how to spot them

• How to standardise your data collection to improve consistency and comparability

• What important grouping variables you’re going to need later (but forget to ask)

• How to manage changing data needs over time

• How to add value to the data you already have

• Why culture and capability matter

Perfect for programme and evaluation leads in government and NGO agencies responsible for setting data and reporting criteria, from strategy level through to operational delivery.