Scriven suggests that a successful program description is something more than just the labeling of program components. I would propose that an appreciative approach to program evaluation also requires something more than a cursory classification or labeling of a program.  It requires that the distinctive and most salient features of the program be identified and carefully described. A program description often serves as a guidebook for successful program replication if it has been prepared in an appreciative manner. It also often probes into the true function and meaning of a specific program.

Edward Kelly takes description and appreciative evaluation a step further in suggesting that one of the most important purposes of an evaluation is the provision of accurate and compelling portrayals – a  vivid depiction or reconstruction of complicated social realities. Those people who are not present when an event occurs should have a valid and useful understanding of what it must have been like to be there. Kelly notes:

A portrayal is, literally, an effort to compare a rendering of an object or set of circumstances . . . . Portrayal evaluation is the process of vividly capturing the complexity of social truth. Things change depending on the angle from which they are viewed: multiple renderings or multiple portrayals are intended to capture the complexity of what has occurred.

In order to prepare an accurate description of a program, it is necessary not only to trace the history and context of the program and describe its central activities and/or products, but also to provide a portrait of the program (brief descriptions, quotations, paraphrases, and observations). What was it like being a coaching client? What did a typical client do differently on a daily basis as a result of participating in this coaching program? What was it like to walk into the office where this program was being enacted? How has this coaching program affected the perspectives (and actions) of the C-Suite leaders in this corporation?