14. Reporting, evaluating and celebrating success

During the course of the project, you will often be asked the question 'What has the project achieved so far?' Every time you discuss the project, it is important to highlight the 'return on investment' – what the project has accomplished to date. You can measure your achievements against two sets of goals: the delivery of the objectives set by the co-design groups, which will focus on the service changes; and project objectives, such as how many people have turned up regularly.

Because EBCD draws on qualitative data, the types of service improvements that result may not be measurable through typical approaches such as audit, but they are still measurable. One type of evaluation is simply to list all the improvements suggested by patients and staff, and to detail which of these have been achieved to date. Many of the improvements will be simple, small-scale adjustments that may not seem much to others, but patients have identified these as making a big difference to their experience of the service. So when considering which elements to measure, think about what participants have highlighted as being important, and focus on those.

Finally you need to celebrate the successes that have been achieved through the project. EBCD requires emotional investment from staff and patients alike. Holding a celebratory event for everyone involved six to nine months after the joint patient–staff event is a simple but important way of thanking participants, reporting back on what has been achieved, and providing a clear ending point to this part of the project. This may also act as a catalyst for future projects.

Key points

• Every time you talk to the person who commissioned the project or your colleagues or project participants, offer them clear facts about how the project is progressing and what it has achieved so far.
• Have a handy presentation or document ready that you can adapt for different purposes, including a couple of strong stories with ‘before-and-after’ evidence of improvements. (See example co-design achievements presentation).
• Keep track of all the service improvements and achievements throughout the course of the project, generating a list of the actions that resulted directly from co-design groups.
• Also mention the links with any other service improvement projects that were already in progress at the start of the EBCD project and were touched on during project discussions. However, make sure you do not appear to take credit for these.
• Try to demonstrate the wider impacts of being involved in the experience and watching the film. This is easiest to do through qualitative feedback. For example, regularly ask for comments on feedback forms and include quotes in your presentations and literature.
• Where possible, highlight any tangible, measurable changes, citing before-and-after figures. If any changes have a secondary benefit of cutting costs (for example, streamlining processes to avoid duplication of tasks), include those costs where possible.
• Accept any opportunities to talk about the project within wider forums – for example, at internal meetings, or wider networking events or seminars – again providing clear evidence of outcomes.
• Work with your communications department and relevant service-user forums to publicise the project in key groups, newsletters or other media (internal and external). EBCD can also be powerful when bidding for new tenders, so make sure your business development teams are aware of your work.
• If you show film clips, be careful not to break confidentiality. If the film clip shows negative feedback, make sure you balance this out by explaining what has been done to resolve the situation.
• Make the celebration event as informal as possible. Ask someone to give a short talk to summarise the project and to thank everyone involved, remembering that some participants may have been involved at intermittent points during the project. Use this opportunity to collate everything that has been achieved into one document. (See example celebration event presentation). 
• At the celebration event, make sure everyone feels comfortable. Assign people the role of facilitating informal chats, to help less confident guests circulate. Putting up posters showing project achievements provides a useful focal point to help guests break the ice.
• In some cases patient groups have remained involved in improvements, so the project has sparked off an ongoing process.

Read the next section

15. Adapting the approach to your budget