At Bixal, we are excited to be coming up on the first anniversary of our Evaluation, Monitoring and Learning Services (EVAL-ME Ⅱ) Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract award with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
We have continued to expand our data and monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) offerings, and the EVAL-ME II IDIQ, with its focus on data analyses, technology, and learning and capacity building, is critical to Bixal’s ability to conceive and create transformative, data-driven customer experiences that advance USAID’s global mission to improve people’s lives.
Awarded in September 2020, the EVAL-ME II mechanism provides Bixal even greater opportunities to work with our consortium partners to advance and integrate data methodologies, such as combining data sets and using geo-referenced secondary data, to deepen our understanding of difficult-to-measure concepts (e.g., resilience and governance) and expand our practice of how to use that understanding to improve outcomes and project design.
Bixal Vice President of Measurement and Impact Kerry Bruce, DrPH, brings a wealth of expertise and a clear vision to our data science practice area and MEL portfolio. Building on her deep experience designing and implementing evaluation systems for a variety of complex projects, Bruce is advancing Bixal’s use of digital strategies for sophisticated data collection, dashboard development, visualizations and other tools that promote data use.
Bruce is also working with other Bixal technical leads (e.g., technology development, modernized learning and human-centered design) to advance the thinking and design of technology solutions for performance MEL while building our partners’ capacity to use these approaches to meet evolving business needs.
Why MEL?
The MEL components — monitoring, evaluation and learning — provide a framework for understanding a project’s progress and impact: ongoing collection and analysis of program data (monitoring); periodic analysis of project data to gauge progress toward intended outcomes and impacts (evaluation); and use of those findings to fine-tune and course-correct activities, build on success and share knowledge gained (learning).
By applying the knowledge gained from evidence and analysis to our practices, we can promote improvements to outcomes and ensure accountability for the resources used to achieve them.
MEL and Agile Methodologies
Bixal also brings deep Agile experience to MEL methods and applications. The Agile process includes a set of principles and methods that promote iterative, sustainable solutions through reflective, incremental assessments to review how we can more effectively adjust strategy as new needs and challenges arise.
Similarly, the learnings from monitoring and evaluation (M&E) can be used to better inform the next cycle in an iterative implementation process. By using data-collection platforms and dashboards to increase efficiency in the data-reporting cycle, we enable rapid feedback loops for adaptive management, a key component of both MEL and Agile.
Highlighting Bixal’s Growing Data and MEL Practice Area
With rapidly changing priorities and environments, many of Bixal’s partners, including USAID, require efficient, cost-effective solutions to meet the mounting pressure to access real-time data and innovative analyses. The following examples show how we deploy Agile and MEL to advance the work of our federal partners:
USAID: Bixal’s data-analytics team built a custom Tableau dashboard to support program M&E for USAID’s Feed the Future Knowledge, Data, Learning, and Training (KDLT) activity. By transforming disparate datasets into a user-friendly dashboard, Bixal created easy access and an optimal method to communicate KDLT activity progress to both internal team members and the larger USAID KDLT management team. The indicator dashboard efficiently translates KDLT trends and patterns and allows team members to identify successes and challenges and then adapt accordingly.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS): HHS’s large internet footprint made data management, monitoring and coordinated improvement an ongoing challenge. Data was available but not centralized, limiting HHS’s business-intelligence capabilities. Bixal introduced a business-intelligence environment that integrated cloud-based data storage, an Agile approach to business intelligence and a repeated focus on quickly converting data to usable information. To improve data analysis and use, we expanded the enterprise data warehouse and developed interactive and engaging data visualization and -reporting tools based on user-informed research and human-centered design strategies.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): Bixal supports HUD billing, training and reporting across the Housing Counseling Training and Certification Program. Manual reporting proved to be cumbersome and labor-intensive to complete, requiring the compilation of data extracted from numerous sources, which often took 15 days into the next monthly cycle to complete. Bixal created a web application linked to HUDHousingCounselors.com, connecting other sites through application programming interfaces, to automatically collect data for display on an interactive dashboard. The application reduced HUD’s reporting effort and provided the client with access to real-time data with an opportunity to explore more user-driven data analysis.
Social Security Administration (SSA): Bixal identified and implemented a minimum viable product (MVP) to reduce the burden of Social Security card replacement transactions on SSA field offices and call centers. We began with a base period of discovery around user experience, technology and data. During this period, qualitative and quantitative research-validated key audiences, website content analysis and impact assessment. Exploratory data analysis, topic modeling and enterprise data mapping provided a strong context through which the MVP would provide immediate relief and serve as a scalable model to solve systemic challenges regarding information-technology modernization, enterprise data gaps and the need for a customer experience strategy.
WomenLift Health: As the MEL partner for the Stanford University Center for Global Health Innovation’s WomenLift Health Leadership Initiative (a multiyear, multinational initiative funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), Bixal/Clear Outcomes designed the MEL framework for the project, built a custom Tableau dashboard to share progress on key indicators, and currently conducts annual evaluations and leads monthly learning sessions with the team.
Bixal’s team of evaluators, data scientists and analysts brings a full suite of capabilities and support services to solve complex challenges at local and global levels. Our unique delivery of MEL and data solutions, grounded in Agile principles, supports our federal partners with crucial data for informed decision-making.
Visit our website to learn more about Bixal’s capabilities.
