Publisher Summary
This chapter discusses pre-assessment, the most significant aspect of doing an evaluation. Pre-assessment is crucial to the successful completion of the evaluation. In pre-assessment, the required information that was gathered during the organizational assessment is identified and obtained. The chapter also elaborates on the issue of understanding the customer concerns and constraints. This is where the evaluator needs to understand why he/she was brought in to do the evaluation. This requires a complete understanding of what the customer is concerned about. Most of the time, the concerns are focused on compliance issues. The chapter also includes the topic of obtaining management buy-in. Without management buy-in, the evaluation will have a significantly lower probability of success. The last section of the chapter talks about the establishment of the POCs. The administrative POC is very important to the evaluation team because they are knowledgeable about the customer's political landscape and usually have the authority to be able to cross political boundaries.