Planning is indicated as a first step; however, the stages of formative evaluation need not be linear. They can occur and recur at various points in the formative evaluation process. During the planning stage you will review objectives and goals for your project, script an evaluation session with the questions you will ask and determine what types of data you will be collecting. The goal is to inform your project's development, not produce replicable data. For example, if you are evaluating the implementation of an online course, you would determine what the objectives and goals of the course were, who would you be interested in receiving feedback from and what sort of data needs to be collected to determine whether you are on track.
If the planning stage is done with care, stage two will flow nicely without any surprises. There should be two of you performing the evaluation: an evaluator and a recorder. Follow your carefully determined script to engage subjects in obtaining their feedback. It is acceptable and desirable to prompt for further clarification regarding responses. For example, if a respondent involved in an evaluation of a workplace policy says, "I don't like the policy," you might respond with, "What is it about the policy you don't like?"
Review the notes that you have both taken, making note of discrepancies and to ensure that you have captured what was said by respondents. It is important to review these notes before the next testing session to minimize confusion. You can share this information back to subjects to ensure that what you have gathered accurately reflects what they intended to share. You can choose to produce an executive summary that briefly describes outcomes of the sessions to share with those who may not have participated in the testing sessions directly.
In this stage you will review the data collected and determine which steps need to be taken first. Prioritization of next steps occurs here, where you will decide which concerns need to be addressed immediately and what should wait. You should identify both positive and negative feedback in the data so that actions can be taken to promote what is going well and address what is not. You may wish to rate items or themes identified in order of how easy the issue is to address and whether the item is a minor or major concern. For example, if you receive feedback about the design and color scheme of a web page as well as feedback about it being difficult to access, you would prioritize the access issues ahead of design.