Discovering Process Use

Abstract

Trying to figure out what’s really going on is, of course, a core function of evaluation. Part of such reality testing at a conference includes sorting out what our profession has become and is becoming, what our core disciplines are, and what issues deserve our attention. I have spent a good part of my evaluation career reflecting on these concerns, particularly from the point of view of use; for example, how to work with intended users to achieve intended uses, and how to distinguish the general community of stakeholders from primary users so as to work with them. In all of that work, and indeed through the first two editions of Utilization-Focused Evaluation (a period spanning 20 years), I have been engaging in evaluations with a focus on enhancing utility, both the amount and quality of use. However, when I went to prepare the third edition of the book (Patton, 1997), and was trying to sort out what had happened in the field in the 10 years since the last edition, it occurred to me that I had missed something. I was struck by something which my own myopia had not allowed me to see before. When I have followed up my own evaluations over the years, I have asked intended