Our book group is part of the Tucson, Arizona contingent of Azenet, an AEA affiliate. Reading Evaluation in the Face of Uncertainty chapters 1-4 has stimulated the rich discussion and experience sharing that we had hoped for, among new and experienced evaluators. As JM anticipated in the intro, some read cases as they were cited, while others are waiting to read them later and are inserting our own experiences. None of us has discussed systematically common problems, surprises and solutions before. Can people learn to handle surprises before becoming evaluators/researchers? We agreed that the book would be a great read for an Evaluation II course. We’ve begun to call it Uncertainty in the Face of Evaluation…. More on our discussion next post.
Evaluation Uncertainty 
Well, this is interesting. (And maybe a bit embarrassing.) When the idea for this dialogue With Azenet was first hatched, I thought to myself – easy, duck soup. After all, I wrote the book, so I must have a deep understanding of what’s in it. HA! A few things are going on. First, one forgets. Second, the way the book is constructed, there are rich connections among its parts. Third, I have been thinking a lot since the book came out, I have done more evaluations, and I have seen many more evaluations done by others. What I have not done is take the time to step back, ponder it all, and consider how all that has affected my thinking about evaluation surprise. So for me, this is turning into a much harder, and much more interesting exercise that I had anticipated. I do hope that all of us get something out if it.