SALTO Training Course "Project Management and Capacity Building", UK 2001
Project management handbook
This handbook is designed to provide you with a number of practical tools to use when planning and implementing a project in the field of European youth work.
It is a product of the SALTO-YOUTH UK Project Management training programme that was run twice in the spring of 2001 and is intended for practitioners who are organising international projects with young people. A course report is also available on the SALTO web site, which contains detailed information about the training methods used and a course evaluation. Many of the tools were designed and developed by the 49 participants from over 20 different countries in these two courses.
SALTO stands for ‘Support for Advanced Learning and Training Opportunities’ in the European Commission’s programme, YOUTH. As part of their commitment to increase quality, the Commission set up four SALTO-YOUTH centres within the National Agencies of UK, France, Flemish Belgium and Germany. One of SALTO’s main tasks has been to offer training courses in areas that are important to the quality development of the programme.
The co-operation covenants between the Council of Europe and the European Commission, another pillar of the European training strategy, have published a number of T-Kits (Training Kits). These and other resources are available on line (www.traning-youth.net). The intention has been to avoid repetition of this work but rather to compliment it and to bring some of the materials into one easy-to-use format.
The materials in this handbook are laid out so that they can be adapted and/or copied for use in a wide variety of projects. References have been provided for further background reading and training courses are offered through National Agencies on a regular basis.
Consider using this handbook as a companion during the life of your project. If you keep it in a loose-leaf binder format, you can add in a your own pages of notes and copies of things like application forms. If you do this throughout the project it will provide a very useful reference when compiling your report.
The first section of the handbook describes a simple flow diagram for any project. This is followed by some notes on leadership, with questions to ask yourself personally or as a leadership team. Each part of the flow chart is then tackled in turn. Practical tools and checklists are provided. Notes are kept to a minimum as it is assumed that you will have read some background in other publications or attended a training course.
Project Phases
Below is a simple flow model of the life of a project. This will be used to define the structure of this handbook. Further, more complex models are available in the T-Kit Number 3 Project Management available on line at www.training-youth.net.
Some thoughts on leadership and management
Leadership means many different things to many different people. One way to express the difference between leadership and management is to say that “managers do things right and leaders do the right things”. Or in other words, leaders are responsible for effectiveness and managers are responsible for efficiency (See T-Kit No.1 Organisational Management, page 44).
Both leadership and management are about clarifying, uniting, facilitating, encouraging and co-ordinating. They are dynamic processes and responsibilities that take time, effort and often heartache!
As you embark on the role of leader and/or manager – either on your own or as a team, you may find it helpful to ask the following questions:
1 Defining
Being clear about what your project is for is crucial to its success and the following tools help with this.
· Some thoughts on needs analysis and objective setting. This includes hints to help you organise you thinking and be clear about what you are trying to achieve through your project.
· Some guidelines on involving young people in the project from the outset
· Some thoughts on teambuilding as a foundation for the relationships in the project.
Needs analysis
An analysis of need - be it formal or informal – should be the precursor to setting objectives. Your project may start from the point of wanting to meet personal or social needs. At the personal level, needs can be broken down into four main areas; Emotional, Mental, Social and Physical. At the social level you may wish to tackle an element of social inclusion, crime reduction or service to particular groups.
Analysing specific needs may have been done previously - most likely as part of strategic planning in the project’s host organisation. It is often the recognition of a need in the community that brings groups together to ‘do something about it’.
If you are this stage then consulting with NGOs, community organisations and local government will help your analysis of need; to gain their views and the benefit of any research they may have carried out. Or you may consult with members or users of your organisation. If it is members who will be taking part in the project then they should be consulted at the earliest opportunity.
At an organisational level you want to carry out a SWOT analysis as part of the process of identifying needs. Individually and as a group, list all the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to the organisation in relation to kind of activity you have in mind.
Learning and personal development are the two most common areas of need or stated objectives of European Youth projects. These are summarised in the table below.
Learning and personal development outcomes
Skills
Investigation, Observation, Language, Communication, Expression, Self-reliance, Making choices, Lobbying & self advocacy, dealing with the unexpected, reviewing and evaluatingKnowledge
Other cultures, histories and world views, human rights and equal opportunities, issues affecting others, other ways of addressing personal and community issuesAttitudes
Challenging stereotypes, tolerance and understanding, broader perspectives, greater disposition to learn languages, greater sense of responsibility for global issues, enhanced self esteem, increased motivationSetting aims and objectives
Aims
Aims are broad statements about general direction or purpose of the project. Ideally there should only be one aim for a project, but certainly avoid having more than three.
Objectives
Objectives are the steps to be taken to reach the aim or satisfy the purpose. They are more specific, support the aim, can be seen as steps along the way or (better) as a set of results that together will ensure the aim is achieved. Again it is strongly recommended that a project should have no more than five objectives. This way those involved will be required to think specifically about what they are trying to achieve. Clear, concise aims and objectives help everyone to commit to them and aids in decision making and prioritising.
Objectives should be… Concrete
Multiple
Assessable
Timed
Realistic
Flexible
Recognisable (in the activities or tasks)
Remember - Objectives are NOT activities
The basic criteria for objectives are that they are SMART. This means that they need to be:-
Simple
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time related
Objectives can be expressed in sentences beginning with:-
To increase……………..
To decrease…………….
To discover…………….
To raise awareness about……………
To enhance……………
To reduce………………
When setting learning objectives the following may be useful:-
As a result of this international project young people will….
know more about………………
be able to………………………
feel/think differently about……………….
Young people should be involved as fully as possible in the objective setting process. Some thoughts on involvement of young people is included later in this section.
Team building
T-Kit No. 1 Organisational Management has a section on teams in chapter 3. The T-Kit can be found at www.training-youth.net. The following additional comments are offered to get you started in your thinking about your project team.
One definition of a team is a group of people working towards a common goal. Team spirit is the willingness of the members of a team to make their own priorities lower than the priorities of the team.
When planning an international project with young people we need to consider who is in ‘the team’. Many organisations have the culture that promotes the idea of a ‘leadership team’ or a ‘direction team’ and then there are participants. This is perhaps appropriate for large projects or organisations, but for smaller, time bound projects it is better to consider everyone involved as part of the team.
Some members will be involved at the centre of things and others will be on the periphery, but they are all members of the team and need to be communicated with in the same clear and efficient way.
Shared vision
Without a shared vision it is not possible for team to all move in the same direction. Without a shared vision different people will view objectives and priorities in different ways, and without a shared vision it will be difficult to evaluate if the project has been successful.
The best way to ensure that the vision for a project is shared is to build it together. We need to check that the aims and objectives of an international youth project have been developed by all those involved and most importantly, the young people. Different stakeholders will of course have different objectives but they need to be compatible and complimentary to those of the young people.
Communication
Communication is a two way process and requires constant monitoring. Is anyone being left out? What are the systems for keeping everyone up to date with developments? How do you ensure that good ideas are not lost and that everyone is given the chance to be heard?
Team make up
It isn’t always possible to choose every one who is part of your project team, but it is possible for everyone to make a contribution to the team. Are you giving opportunity for people to use their skills and attributes and to develop new ones? (Maybe that is one of your project objectives?) From a practical point of view, do you have all the necessary skills to complete the project? What do you need to add, by training, by bringing others in, or by farming out certain tasks to others?
Team progress
Be aware that teams are dynamic and changing entities. They grow and develop, they have fluctuating energy levels and, in the context of international youth projects, they have beginnings and endings. The members of teams change too: Their levels of commitment wax and wane, skills are developed and people grow into and out of roles. Team members need to be aware of each other as these changes take place. As trust and confidence in each other is developed, so efficiency and effectiveness will develop too.
One of the biggest changes occurs when two teams come together – for example at the start of an exchange. This is crucial time for team building activities and awareness of relationships.
Some practical tips
To aid team development consider using or adapting some of the following practices.
· Hold regular meetings with a planned agenda
· Send out a regular newsletter for all stakeholders – include notes from the meetings
· Engage all members in a ‘skills audit’ to identify skills and gaps to be filled
· Make sure there is enough time for people just to talk – it is in the informal times that some of the best ideas emerge
· Use an inclusive, creative approach to deciding on the project aims and objectives
· Put the aims and objectives of the project on all correspondence and in a prominent place at meetings.
· Take time to review what is going well and what is going not-so-well, at regular intervals – assess the role of relationships in the team in this.
Involving Young People
It is a criteria for some funders and regarded as best practice by many practitioners, that young people should be fully involved in the whole process of planning, implementing and evaluating their international experiences. This leads to greater learning and brings with it greater complexities for those responsible for the organisation.
2 Planning
This section deals with the process of planning. It considers what a plan is and introduces the Gantt chart as one planning tool. It also gives a very brief introduction to critical path analysis. This is followed by a detailed checklist for advanced planning visits and then some thoughts on planning for evaluation.
A Plan is 'a drawing intended to exhibit (show) the relative position and size of the represented parts', 'a tabulated statement or scheme', 'design, intention, way of proceeding
Planning is the creation of a plan, a dynamic map of a journey
The process of creating the plan can be seen as a cyclical one.
It is also a continuous one that does not stop until the project is complete.
Some golden rules for planning
· 80% of project management effort goes into planning - 20% into realisation
· The 5 P's: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance
· KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid!!
· Start with the outline and work up to the detail
Ask the W questions
Who does what?
With Whom?
When?
Where?
With What?
What's the output/result?
What's available to do it?
When does it need to be done by? When does it start and finish?