An assessment may be conducted by expert facilitators or by the participants themselves. There are many possibilities for organizing an assessment, collecting and analyzing data, and making decisions based on the assessment. (These are all presented in Sharing Justice Information: A Capability Assessment Toolkit). However, regardless of the choices made about format, venue, or tools, these four critical success factors strongly influence results.

The success of the assessment depends in large part on the willingness of participants to make assessments and decisions based on solid evidence. Participants must be willing to freely share information about their own organizations and about the capabilities of their sharing partners. Such a willingness helps build an accurate assessment of the initiative as a whole. It also helps identify gaps in capability and strategies for addressing them.