Assessment and evaluation of PIEs
Self assessment
The set of ideas which, taken together, make up the PIEs framework - or approach or model, or principles - is not intended as a yardstick by which you assess services, to see if the 'measure up'.
Instead, it is better seen as a set of tools, of lenses which you can use to look at your own service or services, to sharpen the focus, and then ask yourselves if you feel you are doing everything you can, according to your task, the needs and potential of your client group.
For those that DO want to assess themselves against these principles, we do now have a self assessment module, which we call the Pizazz.
But the first question, before you approach the Pizazz, should always be: how relevant is this way of thinking to us? And then, just how useful is it, to see ourselves through this lens? Does it really help us to get where we want to go, to see ourselves in this light?
Evaluation.
Evaluation of a service is a different question entirely. Evaluation asks whether - or how far - you are achieving what you aim to do. For most services that will be already set for you, either by the funders of the service, who know what they want to see, or perhaps by the mission statement for your service or organisation as a whole.
At best, the PIEs way of thinking might encourage your staff to insist on what really matters, even if that may not be well measured by the terms of your funders. Whist you are trying to achieve those (usually quantifiable) outcomes, you have the opportunity to do a lot more, that isn't measurable; though probably its that that helps you achieve lasting outcomes.
We do need to see more psychologically informed commissioning for more psychologically informed outcomes. So if working with the PIE approach in mind helps you to be more clear, and more assertive, about what you are really achieving, that is all to the good.
We certainly would like to endorse and draw attention to the 'commissioning for complexity' work being done by some local authorities. This is PIE'd commissioning in practice.
