After-action review (AAR):  A structured, retrospective review of an activity or project designed to help teams consider their expectations, note their observations, and analyze the differences between them, to more objectively make decisions about future action.  

Assumption:  A thing you believe to be true, in the absence of positive proof, that informs why you believe a section activity will work.  These are recorded for planning purposes.  In the PD Tools initiative screen, use this field to enter assumptions that enable you to plan with incomplete information.  Planning assumptions might include the availability of staff time, funding, the Ambassador's schedule, or the state of local affairs at some point in the future.  

Indicator:  A value, qualitative or quantitative, that describes or represents the progress toward a goal or objective or change in an output or outcome.  A good indicator allows a section to track progress over time.

Initiative:  A campaign or group of activities that intend to achieve an objective or sub-objective.  Initiatives are the major building blocks of a mission or section’s PDIP, as they serve to link sets of activities, programs, and messages to a foreign policy outcome.  

Input:  The resources invested to start and maintain a section activity, including staff time, funding, and facilities.  Other inputs may include venue space. curriculum materials, literature, in-kind support from organizational partners, computer software or equipment, images or graphics, etc.  

Logic model:  A rigorous methodology used for program or project design that focuses on the causal linkages between project inputs, activities, outputs, short-term outcomes, and long-term outcomes.  It is a visual representation that shows the sequence of related events connecting a planned program’s or project’s objectives with its desired outcomes.

Monitoring plan:  A document that outlines how you plan to measure a section activity’s outputs and outcomes.  It defines what progress and success look like by identifying indicators and tools for data collection.  The monitoring plan includes a list of output and outcome indicators, the tools used to collect indicator data, performance targets for each indicator, and actual values for each indicator, obtained through data collection.

Monitoring selection criteria:  A set of questions to help posts identify which activities are better suited for the PD monitoring process and where to prioritize monitoring efforts.  It asks posts to consider questions about the section activity itself, as well as whether section activities have alternative monitoring requirements.

Outcome:  1.  The incremental progress toward an initiative objective, achieved through the implementation of section activities.  The outcome is determined through observable metrics, such as changes in attitude/behavior or skill building (A field in PD Tools).  2.  The effects clearly linked to the outputs of your activity.  Outcomes should be phrased in terms of results achieved, not actions taken.  Short- term outcomes represent the immediate change in condition following a program and completion of program outputs.  Long-term outcomes represent the attitudes or behaviors that result from the short-term outcomes of the program.

Output:   The direct products or actions that result from the initiative or activity, such as the number of workshops or participants.  These are typically observable, easily quantifiable and can be assessed as a program is taking place.  Outputs are also called “Measures of performance” in other assessment paradigms.  These are usually concrete answers to:  “ who,”  “what,” “when,” “where,” and “how many” questions, and they usually focus on the program’s design and execution.

PD monitoring process:  For each initiative or section activity your section chooses to monitor, the PD Monitoring Process entails three steps: the logic model, the monitoring plan, and the after-action review (AAR).  

Qualitative indicator:  A measurement of the progress toward a change that focuses on the qualities or characteristics of a situation, not the counting.  For example, instead of saying "there are 10 people," or “positive perceptions increased by 15%” (which are quantitative), a qualitative indicator might describe what attendees said they learned from an event.  Qualitative indicators might include narratives or stories, perceptions, descriptions, or ratings such as “great”,” good,” “fair,” “poor.”

Quantitative indicators:  A measurement of the progress toward a change that uses numbers and numerical values to describe things.  Quantitative indicators might include things like the number of attendees, percent change (positive or negative), amount spent or received, or the frequency of an event or occurrence.

Section activity:  Activities, events, projects, and digital or traditional media campaigns that contribute directly to achieving goals of their parent initiative.  Multiple section activities make up an initiative.  Additionally, an object in PD Tools that creates a record of a PD program or project action.  

Targets:  The expected indicator value either at regular intervals during section activity implementation (quarterly targets, for example) or at the end of the activity.  The target sets the level of performance you expect for a specific measure during a certain period of time.