Date and time: Thursday 23 October 2025, 3.00pm - 5.00pm AEDT 
Topic: Evaluation Capacity Building Train Game
Location: Gambaro Room, Common Ground Queensland
Host: Samantha Abbato | Director of Visual Insights People
Register online by: 17 October 2025

Event Description

Building team and organisational capacity in evaluation goes beyond just technical knowledge and skills. The main game is to embed a culture where evaluation and evaluative thinking are a regular part of how an organisation functions. Although the end goal of evaluation capacity building is to promote change at the organisational level, current approaches focus on changing individual-level knowledge and skills. What is needed is the leveraging of theories and frameworks of behavioural science, leadership and change management.

In this event, Sam will introduce a giant board game based on the metaphor of a train journey that is grounded in theories of behavioural motivation, organisational change management and leadership. This game is the culmination of more than a decade and a half’s experience of supporting organisations and government departments to embed evaluation into practice.

The learning outcomes include:
• Knowledge of behavioural change, change management and leadership theories for organisational capacity building.
• Ability to identify organisational-level strategies and actions using trains, a memorable five component, fourteen item framework and a giant game.

The interactive session introducing the game runs for 90-minutes followed by light refreshments and a networking opportunity.

Presenter Details

Sam has over twenty years of experience as an evaluator and a depth of expertise across both qualitative and quantitative disciplines. Her academic grounding in quantitative methods is built upon a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physiology and an MPH and PhD in social epidemiology (University of California at Berkeley).

She became an independent evaluator after teaching qualitative and quantitative methods for three years at the University of Queensland. Sam is passionate about effective communication and evaluation capacity-building using a pictures and stories approach and academic rigour of evidence. Sam leads the multidisciplinary team at Visual Insights People with capability in videography, graphic communication, cartooning, animation, virtual reality, systems thinking, and organisational psychology.

Over the last decade and a half, Sam has guided numerous organisations and government departments in building their evaluation capacity and is dedicated to developing frameworks, tools, and activities to strengthen the culture and practice of evaluation.

 This is a free event organised & hosted by the Queensland Regional Network of the AES. Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators. 

Please check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting.

 Numbers are limited for this in-person event - please only register if you plan to attend.