How many communication professionals have spent more time debating what to measure than actually measuring anything?
We have frameworks, including AMEC’s Integrated Evaluation Framework (IEF), now undergoing its 10-year review. We have research methodologies, technology, and more data than ever. Yet turning that knowledge into meaningful decisions remains a challenge.
Sometimes the problem is a lack of confidence, the fear of being wrong, and sometimes complexity becomes a convenient place to hide.
Distinguished Professor Jim Macnamara AM offers a cure in his new Handbook for Planning and Evaluating Communication (Archipelago Press, 2026).
Drawing on decades of research and professional experience, Jim offers practical guidance on moving from knowing what good measurement and evaluation require to doing the work.
Get past the excuses
Jim opens by challenging familiar barriers to evaluation.
No budget? No time? No skills?
He’s particularly candid about the skills gap. Unlike some of the other excuses, not knowing how to evaluate isn’t always a myth. That’s precisely why practical guidance matters.
He also challenges the misconception that evaluation belongs at the end of a campaign. Research should inform planning, evaluation should monitor progress, and findings should help us adjust before it’s too late.
This integrated approach also underpins AMEC’s IEF, which Jim discusses in the handbook.
For those concerned about resources, he identifies low-cost and no-cost evaluation methods alongside more sophisticated approaches.
The point isn’t to make evaluation complicated. It’s to make it useful.
Stop measuring everything. Start answering something.
Imagine a team preparing a campaign to improve public understanding of an issue.
The familiar approach might be to produce content, launch the campaign, and report impressions, reach, and engagement.
But what if research reveals that the audience already understands the issue? The real problem is trust.
That changes everything.
More explanatory content won’t necessarily solve a credibility problem. The organization may need different voices, more meaningful engagement, or changes in its own behavior.
Jim’s guidance on formative research, SMART objectives, Theory of Change, and program logic helps professionals work through those questions before choosing activities and metrics.
Start with the organizational objective. Understand the audience. Identify the intended change. Determine what evidence will demonstrate progress.
You don’t need 40 metrics to answer a question that requires four.
You need the right evidence.
Stop treating being wrong as failure. When teams are expected to demonstrate success rather than discover what works, they become reluctant to test assumptions. Jim acknowledges that fear of disappointing results is one reason professionals avoid evaluation, but what happens when the evidence tells us we were wrong? Excellent, we’ve learned something.
His discussion of measurement, evaluation, and learning (MEL) takes readers beyond reporting numbers to generating insights and recommendations that inform decisions.
A culture that rewards only positive results will never realize the full value of measurement and evaluation.
If we only use evidence to defend decisions we’ve already made, we’re not evaluating. We’re rationalizing.
The cure requires action
Jim doesn’t pretend every evaluation is simple. Some questions demand sophisticated methods, multiple sources of evidence and careful interpretation.
Make it as simple as the question allows, and as rigorous as the evidence demands.
The handbook brings together the research, methods and practical examples professionals need to plan, measure, evaluate and improve their work. It offers a way forward for those unsure where to begin and experienced practitioners looking to strengthen their approach.
But buying another book won’t cure analysis paralysis. Neither will downloading another framework or investing in another dashboard.
Knowledge only creates value when we put it to work.
Read it. Apply what you learn. Evaluate the results. Repeat.
