prediction – Evaluation Uncertainty

November 20, 2025 jamorell Complex Systems, Programs, and Evaluation, What do research and theory in complexity and systems tell us about evaluation practice and evaluation theory?

How/Can Evaluators Plan For Change Over Time?

I see two genre of futuring. One is based on the belief that however uncertainly, we can envision a future and plan to get there. I call this the “Locksley Hall” approach, after a line in Tennyson’s poem Locksley Hall “For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, / Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.” The second genre relies on the behavior of complex systems and is much less sanguine about futuring. We plan; God laughs.

Eat dessert first. Life is uncertain.
Good advice. True observation.

Any yet, we must soldier on, trying to predict what will happen and to explain why things work out as they do. My professional life has grappled with prediction and explanation through the lens of program evaluation. I have come to appreciate how much, and how little, evaluation can tell us. Sometimes it is “much”. Sometime is “little”. Sometimes it is “much” and “little” at the same time. This blog expresses my engagement with what evaluation can do, what it cannot do, what it should do, and what it should not do. About the graphic.