Enhancing program review for evaluation and management

Program review has not received the attention it warrants as a program evaluation tool despite its wide use for evaluation and management purposes. The use of the program review will probably endure on the strength of its face validity and irrespective of other developments in the field of program evaluation. Evaluators should realize this and, accordingly, attempt to improve its effectiveness. This paper presents one organization's approach to achieving this objective through the explication of development principles, implementation guidelines and review items. This paper also discusses benefits that can be expected from a systematic development of this tool and presents various research directions and potentials in this area.