Plan C, A, B, and maybe D

I have relied on similar checklists throughout my career whenever I have been responsible for making important decisions about which new methods or programs to adopt or which programs to discontinue. If all of the relevant standards are met, determining the ROI is a relatively logical process.  Let's call this Plan A.

Alas, this process is rarely so logical in the real world! I have found the record of clear progress is often remarkably difficult to find, which has led me to wonder how often funders rely on such records when making decisions. So I have come to rely on a Plan B: if I cannot evaluate the ROI based on the outcomes reported in 5, I might begin to base decisions on the strength of the plan described in 1-4.

Plan B is based upon the assumption, however, that a complete summary of the project (i.e., that references 1 to 4) is publicly available. I have found that even the most basic information about a project can be difficult to find (for other reasons described below). This is the case for SB93: little relevant information on its activities and whatever progress it might have achieved - if any - is readily available to the public (there is some other relevant information to be found for those ready to do a lot more legwork, although this raises other important questions about how progress is defined).  Hence Plan C - first establishing whether any information referenced in 1 to 4  is available - before we can even consider a Plan A and B.

And yet there is still another option. While we could simply make a decision right away based on the results of Plan B or even a Plan C, sometimes there are really important opportunities to make adjustments when a project falls short of the criteria referenced in Plan A. Indeed, the best and most exciting projects are experiments  that push the envelope of our knowledge.  By their very nature, these experiments may not always yield the expected outcomes. So sometimes the ROI is best determined after a plan has been implemented to address the gaps noted in Plans A or B or C.  This is Plan D. Later, we will discuss an even more compelling reason turn to Plan D to give projects every reasonable opportunity to succeed.

This kind of analysis of the documentation available is only one facet of a project's assessment: it establishes that goals have been set, that methods have been described, and that reasonable progress has been documented.  This analysis does not consider other critical questions - whether the most important outcomes have been prioritized, whether the goals have been clearly defined, or whether the best methods have been identified - addressed in a later piece.  These other questions are arguably more important, but can only be answered if documentation is available.