SME Partner

Helen Greer, London Symphony Orchestra

PhD Student/Early Career Researcher

Sam Duffy, Queen Mary University of London

Supervisor

Professor Patrick Healey, Queen Mary University of London

Project Name

LSO Discovery – Re-thinking Evaluation

Project Description

Sam Duffy’s residency with the London Symphony Orchestra set out to review the company’s existing evaluation activities and to predict and prepare for their future evaluation needs. With a focus on the music education programmes LSO deliveries in collaboration with music hubs across East London Duffy set out on a three staged process.

The residency began with the organisation of a series of semi-structured interviews with key individuals in LSO’s Discovery team. Conducted over four months Duffy met with project managers, representatives of the marketing department, LSO’s St Luke’s Centre Manager, trusts and foundations managers, the Director of Finance and Resources and the Managing Director of LSO.

Complemented by additional research into how other organisations have addressed evaluating their community and educational impact Duffy organised a workshop with company project managers. Anonymised interview statements were presented in the workshop, followed by a discussion and the development of a set of recommendations. Two key recommendations were implemented by LSO:

1. A central repository for evaluation materials was created.
2. A second central repository was created for external materials e.g. toolkits, templates and examples of other organisations strategies.

Duffy concluded the project with a final report for LSO’s internal use. In it he included a recommendation for a annual evaluation plan, templates for planning evaluation activities and explained the vital need for the dissemination of outcomes across LSO.