The Data Collection and Analysis Plan

When it comes to determining the ROI for coaching, we certainly

have our work cut out for us: converting benefits to monetary value,

isolating the effects, tabulating program costs, and calculating the

ROI. The intention of this chapter is to make this evaluation as

simple and painless as possible. An evaluation process will be presented

that has been battle-tested and proven to work with coaching

time and time again. Consequently, not every possible angle for

the evaluation will be explored. Readers who wish to further explore

alternative approaches to evaluation are encouraged to review the

References and Further Reading section at the end of this book.

Many excellent resources are available to help build knowledge and

skills in the art and science of evaluation.

This chapter cuts to the quick: how to plan the data collection and

analysis and quickly select those data collection tools that will

creditably show the ROI. The sponsors and leaders of coaching

initiatives, evaluators, HR professionals, coaches, and others will

have, in this chapter, all they need to conduct an ROI evaluation of

coaching. The next chapter presents a slimmed-down version of

evaluating only the application of coaching.

The first step is to develop the Data Collection and Analysis Plan.

This plan is the link from the evaluation strategy to conducting the

evaluation. The Data Analysis Plan has six major elements:

1. The evaluation objective, which comes directly from the

evaluation strategy

2. The isolation strategy, which again comes from the evaluation

strategy

3. The sources of data, which are required to execute the isolation

strategy

4. Data collection tools, which will be used to gather all relevant

data from the identified sources

5. The analysis approach, which summarizes how the data will be

collected and analyzed

6. The key events schedule, which includes the major activities

required to execute the data collection plan

Let’s return to OptiCom to see how they utilized this format and

created an effective plan to analyze the evaluation objectives. In this

example, we look only at how they planned the Data Collection and

Analysis Plan for the first objective: increased collaboration among

leaders resulting from coaching. Table 12.1 presents this plan. Let’s

break it down as follows:

_ Isolation strategy. The isolation strategy was taken directly from

the evaluation strategy document (Table 11.2). Expert estimation

is planned as the only isolation technique. Neither a

pre/post nor a comparison group analysis were planned to be

used. This means, of course, that the credibility of the entire

Table 12.1 Data Collection and Analysis Plan for One Evaluation

Objective at OptiCom

Evaluation Objective 1: Increased collaboration among leaders resulting from

coaching