Leonard Rutman (1980) has recently written a book entitled Planning Useful Evaluations: Evaluability Assessment, in which he outlines procedures for determining whether or not a program can be effectively evaluated. In 1976, my colleagues and I conducted a preevaluation assessment as part of the planning for a large educational evaluation (Smith, Erpelding, & Owen, Note 1). Although at the time we had not heard of the term "evaluability assessment," the procedures we employed followed Rutman's recommendations with great fidelity. It seems useful, therefore, to review Rutman's recommendations on the basis of our experience with similar procedures. What follows is a brief discussion of Rutman's view of evaluability assessment, a short description of our evaluation planning activities, and a retrospective critique of Rutman's evaluability model.