Project Planning and Execution: A Results-Based Approach
Understanding the Logic of Intervention
Effective project planning hinges on a clear understanding of the desired outcomes and the steps required to achieve them. This involves:
- Identifying a goal that contributes to the specific objective of the project.
- Defining expected results that will help meet that goal.
- Planning activities that will produce those results.
- Calculating the resources needed for these activities.
- Addressing preconditions necessary for success.
Intervention occurs during the execution of project activities and triggers a chain of consequences, moving from the specific to the general. Once the necessary preconditions are met and resources are secured, the actual intervention activities begin. These activities lead to the desired results. If the assumed conditions hold, a chain of consequences will be initiated, ultimately enabling the project to meet its objectives.
This understanding of the project emphasizes that all planning elements must be linked to the ultimate goal. Every action must be assigned to a specific activity, and each activity only makes sense if it contributes to a result that facilitates the project’s objective.
Monitoring and Control
We ensure that each stage of the project is on track by establishing control procedures. These procedures help us determine the degree of compliance with each step. This is achieved by defining clear indicators and sources of verification.
Methodology: A Phased Approach
Phase 1: Situation Analysis
The first phase focuses on analyzing the current situation. This involves:
- Identifying stakeholders.
- Examining the problems affecting the most vulnerable group.
- Selecting the central issue that the project will address.
- Identifying potential solutions and choosing the most effective one. This chosen solution will become the specific objective and will guide the project’s formulation.
Stakeholder Identification
Identifying stakeholders is a two-part process:
- Preliminary Field Recognition: Experts gather initial impressions of the situation.
- Participatory Workshop: Stakeholders, whether beneficiaries or not, come together to collaboratively design the project. This workshop may span several days.
Problem Formulation
Formulating the problem correctly is crucial. It should adhere to these guidelines:
- Problems should be framed in terms of the collective’s status, not just the needs expressed by experts. For example, instead of stating the problem as “lack of shelters for immigrants,” it should be framed as “immigrant groups are not meeting minimum living conditions.” Formulating the problem in terms of the collective’s needs ensures that the solution is inherently part of the problem statement. In this case, improving the living conditions of immigrants might involve building shelters, but it could also involve other solutions.
- The central problem must be an observable and verifiable fact. There should be empirical evidence to support its formulation numerically. This is important for evaluation purposes, as it’s easier to say that youth violence has decreased by 10% than to claim that their living conditions have improved, especially if the decrease in violence is due to 10% of the youth being incarcerated.
- Given the need for numerical verification, all elements related to verifying project results must meet this condition. For instance, if the project aims to reduce school absenteeism, the output could be measured as follows:
- Project Goal: Reduce levels of absenteeism.
- Output: Decreased absences in the student center.
- Source of Verification: Attendance records at the schools of the student group that participated in the program.
- The relationship between improving the beneficiaries’ situation and achieving the intervention’s goal is based on a cause-and-effect logic. Every problem is caused by one or more factors that produce a specific effect.
Therefore, project objectives should be formulated as if the problem were already solved.