Consulting with the people involved in or affected by your project when planning an evaluation will tell you how they perceive the evaluation and what information they might need from it. Consultation is particularly important at an early stage for informing both project aims and identifying appropriate evaluation aims. It can also provide an opportunity to test out ideas and methods and to discuss whether a particular kind of evaluation activity might be appropriate.

Setting aims is a crucial part of the evaluation cycle.  A clear set of evaluation aims should inform the questions that the evaluation seeks to answer.  Many arts and health projects have a wide range of project aims, not all of which can be easily measured, particularly given limited evaluation resources.  Evaluators will need to decide which aims to focus on, based on stakeholder priorities, an understanding of what can actually be measured, and the funds and resources available.