In nearly every monitoring and evaluation (M&E) project I’ve supported (whether it’s building a M&E framework or helping teams with data sense making) there comes a moment, often near the end, when staff reflect candidly.

“This was actually really interesting,” they’d say, “…but we don’t really get time to think like this.”

It’s a quiet acknowledgment of a very real tension: Staff see the value in evaluative thinking, but day-to-day programming demands of don’t allow them the time or space to engage with it meaningfully.

They’re not admissions of disinterest or resistance—they’re reminders of what it means to be inside a maxed-out organization.

Evaluation becomes something that’s outsourced to an external evaluator. Not because staff wants it to be, but because there’s no room to slow down, reflect, and strategize as a team.

And yet, the more you push data work to the margins, the more disconnected it becomes from the real day-to-day decision making.

Here’s how organizational leadership can make space for data-driven decision making—even when it feels like there’s none to spare.