You are the senior leadership team at Greenfield College. Their Student Leadership Development Program has four components and has been running for four years. You have access to the full program dashboard.
Explore the dashboard across all three views: Summary, Cost & Resources, and Demographics
Discuss what the data tells you about this program
Decide as a table: what is your recommendation?
Your Recommendation
As a group, agree on one of these four options:
Invest More
Maintain As-Is
Redesign
Divest
Capture Your Thinking
Your recommendation
Top 2-3 data points that drove your decision
What questions came up that the dashboard could not answer?
Be ready to share: Your recommendation, the data that drove it, and how confident you are.
15:00
15 minutes
Activity 2
Coach the Evaluation Draft
12 minutes Table groups Identify weaknesses and formulate coaching questions
A Greenfield program director has drafted an evaluation plan for their component and brought it to you for review. The draft is not obviously wrong. Parts of it are reasonable. But it has weaknesses that will undermine the evaluation if left unaddressed.
Read the draft your table has been assigned
Discuss what concerns you. Where is the thinking strong? Where is it weak or vague?
Formulate 2-3 coaching questions you would ask to help the director strengthen their plan. Do not rewrite it for them.
Remember: Your job is not to design the evaluation. Your job is to ask the questions that help your program director think more clearly. In practice, these drafts will not have one obvious flaw. They will have grey areas that require conversation.
Draft A: Peer Facilitation Training
From: Director of Student Leadership Programs
Outcome: "Students who complete the facilitation training will demonstrate stronger leadership skills in their campus roles."
Evaluation Question: "To what extent do students apply facilitation techniques in their other leadership positions?"
Evidence Plan: "Self-report survey administered to participants six months after program completion."
Where it gets tricky: This looks reasonable at first glance. It describes a change ("demonstrate stronger leadership skills"), not an activity. And the evaluation question is focused. But "stronger leadership skills" is vague. What does stronger mean? Which skills? "Campus roles" is unbounded. And the evidence is self-report only with no baseline, no observation, and no triangulation. The director will feel like they have done good work here. Your coaching needs to sharpen without dismissing.
Draft B: Community Service Projects
From: Director of Community Engagement
Outcome: "Students will complete at least three service projects and develop a sense of civic responsibility."
Evaluation Question: "Did students complete the required projects and did their civic attitudes change?"
Evidence Plan: "Project completion records and a pre/post civic engagement attitudes survey."
Where it gets tricky: This draft is doing two things at once and treating them as one. The first half ("complete at least three projects") is an activity target. The second half ("develop civic responsibility") is an actual outcome, but it is undefined. The evaluation question also asks two separate things joined by "and." But the evidence plan is actually not bad. It includes a pre/post design. The coaching challenge is helping the director see that completion and development are different things, and that "civic responsibility" needs to be defined in observable terms.
Draft C: Speaker Series
From: Director of Campus Programming
Outcome: "Students who attend the speaker series will report increased awareness of leadership pathways and career options."
Evaluation Question: "To what extent did attendance at the speaker series increase students' awareness of leadership pathways?"
Evidence Plan: "Post-event reflection survey administered after each speaker event."
Where it gets tricky: This is the most sophisticated draft. It passes the judgement-ready test (it can fail). It is bounded (students who attend). The question is clear and focused. But is "report increased awareness" really an outcome, or is it satisfaction repackaged in evaluation language? Is awareness a meaningful change that justifies the program, or is it the lowest possible bar? And the evidence is post-event only with no baseline. The coaching challenge here is the hardest: is this outcome meaningful enough, or is the director setting a bar they cannot fail to clear?
Reference: Three Tests for an Evaluable Outcome
Use these to diagnose what is wrong with the draft:
1
Specific Change
Does it describe a change in students, not an activity the program runs?
2
Bounded Scope
Is it bounded to a population, context, and timeframe?
3
Judgement Ready
Can it fail? Does it allow for partial or no success?
Your Coaching Response
Which draft was your table assigned?
What is working in this draft?
Start with what the director got right. This matters for coaching.
Where does the draft need sharpening?
Use the three tests and your judgment. What is vague, unbounded, or unmeasurable?
What 2-3 coaching questions would you ask the director?
Questions that help them see the gaps and strengthen the plan themselves.
Coaching Question Starters
These are not scripts. They are starting points. Adapt them to what you see in the draft.
"What does stronger look like? Can you describe what I would see a student doing differently?"
"You are measuring two different things here. Which one matters most for the decision you face?"
"Is awareness the real outcome, or is it a step toward a deeper change you actually care about?"
"Your evidence is self-report only. What would tell you whether the change is actually happening, not just whether students say it is?"
"If this outcome did not happen, how would you know? What would failure look like?"
"I see the activity and I see the outcome. Walk me through why you believe the first produces the second."
Be ready to share: What was strong in the draft, where it needs work, and the coaching questions you would ask. Focus on the questions, not the fixes.
12:00
12 minutes
Activity 3
Practice the Coaching Conversation
10 minutes Table groups Coach a director who resists evaluation findings
The Scenario
Your program director at Greenfield brings you the Leadership Retreat evaluation results. The finding:
Finding: Students who completed the Retreat showed no measurable difference in leadership behaviors compared to matched non-participants. However, 78% reported high satisfaction and personal growth.
Your director pushes back:
"Students love this program. Satisfaction is 4.6. Mentors say it is transformative. I do not think this evaluation captures what the Retreat really does."
Your Task
Discuss how you would coach this director through the findings. The goal is not to override them or to concede. It is to hold both perspectives and move from belief to evidence.
Validate what is real in the director's perspective without conceding the evidence
Ask questions that move the conversation toward clarity, not confrontation
Find a path forward that neither of you would reach alone
The key tension: The director is not wrong that the program has value. The evaluation is not wrong that the intended outcome is not occurring. Both can be true. Your job is to hold that tension.
Reference: The Evaluation Results
Finding: Students who completed the Retreat showed no measurable difference in leadership behaviors compared to matched non-participants. However, 78% reported high satisfaction and personal growth.
Root Cause: The retreat design emphasizes personal reflection and team bonding but does not include structured skill practice, application planning, or post-retreat follow-through. Students enjoy the experience but do not transfer behaviors.
Recommendation: Redesign the retreat to include structured leadership skill practice and a post-retreat application plan with a 60-day check-in. Pilot with one cohort before full rollout.
Questions to Consider Drawing From
Purpose & Alignment
"Help me understand what you think the Retreat actually does for students. If it is not leadership behaviors, what is the real outcome?"
Outcomes & Impact
"The evaluation did not capture what you believe the Retreat does. Can we name that outcome and test it next cycle?"
Program Design
"The root cause points to no skill transfer. Could we add a transfer mechanism rather than defending the current design?"
Learning & Improvement
"What would a redesigned pilot look like that keeps what works and fixes what does not?"
Your Coaching Approach
How would you open the conversation?
Start with validation. What would you say to acknowledge the director's perspective before introducing the evidence gap?
What 2-3 coaching questions would you ask?
Questions that move from belief to evidence without dismissing either.
What path forward would you propose?
Not cut or keep. What is the third option?
Coaching Principles for This Conversation
Lead with curiosity, not data. If you lead with the data, you get defensiveness. If you lead with "help me understand," you get a conversation.
Validate, then redirect. "I hear you that students value this experience. That is real. And the evaluation is not saying the retreat is worthless."
Separate the hypothesis from the design. The evaluation found the design is not working. It did not find the outcome is impossible.
Propose a test, not a verdict. "What if we piloted a redesigned version with one cohort? You keep the retreat. We add what is missing. We measure again."
Be ready to share: How you opened the conversation, the coaching question you found most effective, and the path forward you proposed.
10:00
10 minutes
Activity 4 - Take Home
Your First Coaching Conversation
5 minutes Individual reflection Identify a real conversation for the next 30 days
Your Task
Open the Leadership Evaluation Reference Guide. It is organized around nine situations you will actually face as a leader. This is the tool you are taking with you.
Think about the next 30 days. Find a situation that matches something real on your calendar or in your portfolio. Then identify the conversation you plan to have.
The Nine Situations in Your Guide
Situation 1
A director proposes a new program
Situation 2
A team member is mid-evaluation
Situation 3
A team member presents findings
Situation 4
A director resists evaluation findings
Situation 5
Budget season: a director requests more funding
Situation 6
A legacy program has never been questioned
Situation 7
A director reports strong satisfaction numbers
Situation 8
A program is underperforming
Situation 9
Annual review: reviewing the program portfolio
Your Plan
Which situation matches something you are facing?
Which program on your team?
Who is the program director you plan to talk to?
Which 2-3 questions from the guide will you ask?
Copy or paraphrase the specific questions from your chosen situation.
When will you have this conversation?
Be ready to share (10 seconds): The situation you picked and the program director you plan to talk to.