INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
INTRODUCTION TO PROJECTPLANNING AND DEVELOPMENTLearning ObjectivesAfter completing the training, participants will:1. Have an overview of the project planning and development process.2. Complete activities that incorporate the 11 steps of project development.The Project CycleThe process of planning and managing projects follows a logical, continuous cycle. Eachphase of the project leads to the next. The identify stage includes a needs assessment process to determine the needsand problems in acommunity.The design phase includes the actual planning and design of a project.The implement stage refers to the implementation of the project, whether it isa single-year or multi-year implementation period.The evaluation of project results occurs at the end of a project and involvesdetermining whether the project’s goal and objectives were achieved. Theevaluation stage then leads to the identification of additional or persistingproblems, allowing the cycle to begin again.Project monitoring occurs throughout all stages allowing for smalladjustments in the project’s planning, design, and implementation in order toensure the project’s success.An Overview of Project PlanningProject planning involves a series of steps that determine how to achieve a particularcommunity or organizational goal or set of related goals. This goal can be identified in acommunity plan or a strategic plan. Project plans can also be based on community goals
or action strategies developed through community meetings and gatherings, tribal councilor board meetings, or other planning processes.The planning process should occur before you write your application and submit it forfunding.Project planning: identifies specific community problems that stand in the way of meetingcommunity goals.creates a work plan for addressing problems and attaining the goals.describes measurable beneficial impacts to the community that result from theproject’s implementation.determines the level of resources or funding necessary to implement the project.Why is project planning important?Project Planning helps us to:think ahead and prepare for the futureclarify goals and develop a visionidentify issues that will need to be addressedchoose between optionsconsider whether a project is possiblemake the best use of resourcesmotivate staff and the communityassign resources and responsibilitiesachieve the best resultsProject Planning helps to eliminate:poor planningoverambitious projectsunsustainable projectsundefined problemsunstructured project work plansApproach to Community DevelopmentThe community and its involvement are central to designing and implementing asuccessful project. Many government and other funders seeks to fund community-basedprojects that reflect the cultural values, collective vision, long-range governance, andsocial and economic development goals of native communities.The following overview includes some key points to consider during the project-planningphase.
Local decision making in achieving community self-sufficiency is fundamental in thesuccess and positive growth in every community. Community involvement is central toboth the strategic planning and project planning that occurs before the development ofany grant application. However, in addition to a detailed description of communityinvolvement in the planning and implementation phases of the project, proposals mustprovide documentation to verify community involvement in and support for the proposedproject. This documentation should explain and provide evidence of how the communitywas involved in determining problems faced by its members and in designing strategiesfor reducing or eliminating those problems.Keep in mind that each of the documentation sources listed below provides informationabout different elements of the planning process.Examples of documentation can include the following: summary of a community comprehensive plansummary of a community strategic plansummary of results from a community needs assessmentTribal Council or Board meeting minutes and/or sign-in sheetscommunity meeting minutes and/or sign-in sheetscommunity surveysThere are different methods for involving your community in the project planning process.Below are some examples:Comprehensive PlanningThis process involves completing a community-wide needs assessment to engage thecommunity in identifying and prioritizing all long-range goals and the communityproblems preventing the achievement of those goals. Next, the community is involved inthe process of developing a method to accomplish long-range goals, also discussinginitial ways to overcome the problems. This method should include a process to measurethe progress towards achieving those goals. Comprehensive plans usually require at leasta year to complete, and cover a five- to ten-year time span.Strategic PlanningThis is a process used when a community or organization already has a comprehensiveplan and wants to move forward to achieve its long-range goals. Strategic planning
involves the participation of the community in identifying problems that stand betweenthe community and its goals and moves the community toward realizing its long-rangevision. The product of strategic planning, often simply called the “strategic plan,”builds on pre-established long-range goals by designing projects related to one or more ofthese goals. A strategic plan generally takes at least a year to complete.What if your organization does not have a comprehensive or strategic plan?Comprehensive and strategic planning are time-consuming processes. They require thedevelopment of a community-wide needs assessment that collects community input andis then analyzed to prioritize problems and basic needs of the community. If yourorganization does not have a comprehensive or strategic plan that documents long-rangegoals and problem areas or your specific situation does not warrant having eitherdocument, there are alternative ways of documenting community involvement.Alternative Methods of DocumentationMinutes of past general council meetings or community meetings that document thecommunity’s perception of long-range goals and problems can be used to show that yourproject has a history of community planning activities. This historical documentation ofcommunity problems and the project designed to address those problems should besupplemented through community assessments that determine current conditions andconcerns. Methods for such assessments of current conditions could include focusgroups, nominal group process and survey research. Additional information on thesetools can be found in Appendix B.When you have chosen a process that involves the community in planning and a methodfor documenting the planning, you are ready to begin project development.Initiating the Planning ProcessProject planning begins with the formation of a local project planning committee orgroup. Whenever possible, tribes and organizations should use a team approach to plannew projects which involves staff, community members, community or organizationalleadership, and a grant writer or consultant if necessary. The committee members play animportant role in keeping the project planning process on track while also ensuringeveryone has the opportunity to participate. The committee can organize meetings,
conduct surveys, gather and analyze information, and meet with other agencies andorganizations. This team will develop the project plan and use it to write the differentparts of the application. Generally, you want to spend approximately 80% of your timeplanning your project and 20% of your time writing and packaging the grant application.Once your team is in place, the planning process generally begins with an assessment ofcommunity problems and issues involving various methods to gather community input.Based on information gathered, project developers can identify problems and issues orinterests common to all members of the community to begin the process of settingcommunity priorities.Perhaps one of the most daunting aspects of project planning is ensuring communityinvolvement, because it requires the knowledge and skills necessary to set up and conductor facilitate effective planning sessions, large meetings, and presentations. Publicmeetings are essential to the development of a project with broad grassroots support.Meetings should be held regularly throughout the planning process. Properly facilitatedmeetings provide a great way to gather traditional, cultural, and local knowledge. Theyalso serve as a means to receive input on goals, objectives, and activities in order todetermine ways to best prioritize them.Using the Community ProcessA large part of guaranteeing community involvement will depend on how you utilize anddevelop your community’s community process, or the way in which a community ororganization involves its members in community’s community process, or the way inwhich a community or organization involves its members in the decision-making process.As stated above, the public process should include the many different perspectives thatexist in the community, as this will help build unity around the project. Appendix Bincludes different methods for seeking community involvement in the project planningprocess. Appendix D includes some sample forms and ideas for meetings.In addition, keep the following in mind: Keep records. It is important to document your public process, as thesedocuments can be included in your application. See Appendix D for sampleforms.Use what already exists. An easy way to get participation is to think of groupsthat already exist in the community, such as dance, school and parent, artisan, andyouth groups. Many communities also have organized public meetings.
Attending these already established meetings and informally collectinginformation saves time.Choose “wisely.” Meeting with people who are viewed as wise about thecommunity, such as elders and community leaders, is an effective way to collectvaluable information. These individuals can also help in encouraging supportfrom others. Additionally, do not discount including youth.Getting the Word OutEnsuring that a maximum number of people know about the meeting can be a challenge.Here are some approaches that might be helpful: Create colorful and interesting flyers and post them everywhere (post office,airport, stores, schools, clinics, laundromats, churches, etc.). The flyer shouldbriefly and clearly state the purpose of the meeting and why it is important toattend. Indicate the times the meeting starts and ends.Ask all local media (radio, television, and newspapers) to run free notices orpublic service announcements.Post your meeting on any public calendars maintained in your community.Elicit the help of community organizations to notify their members. Inviting themto become active participants right from the start is a good way to initiate thecollaborative process.Issue personal invitations to community leaders, elders, and any individuals youanticipate might oppose your ideas or project.Boosting AttendanceIt is often difficult to motivate people to leave home and attend a meeting, especiallywhen the meeting is devoted to broad issues of visioning and planning. There arenumerous ways to maximize attendance such as: Provide free childcare during the meeting.Offer door prizes that require the winner to be present.Offer free refreshments or organize a potluck supper.Make sure there are no scheduling conflicts with other community events. Or,conversely, hold your meeting in conjunction with other, relatively brief localevents, such as an award ceremony, a groundbreaking, or the opening of a newfacility.
Choose the most convenient and appealing venue.Provide translation services if English is not the first language of all communitymembers.Provide local entertainment at the conclusion of the meeting.Setting Group PrioritiesBuilding consensus in a community planning meeting can be difficult, but there aretechniques to help move the process forward: Many similar ideas can be consolidated. Work with meeting participants tocluster related thoughts into logical groupings (health, public safety, culture, etc.).A consensus can be formed by vote. One effective method is to write all thegroup’s suggestions on flip chart pages, then give each participant three stickydots. Participants place dots next to the ideas they consider most important, andthe ideas that receive the most dots become the group’s top priorities.An alternative to the dot voting method is a community survey, in whichparticipants are asked to choose their priorities from a list of suggestions made atthe meeting. This method is much more time consuming and labor intensive, buthas the benefit of potentially increasing community awareness and involvement inthe planning process.
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT STEPSWhen planning for and designing a new project, it is suggested using the following tensteps of project development:1. Identify the Long Range GoalsBegin by describing the conditions that would exist in a “perfect community;” that set ofstatements is the community’s long range goals in such areas as “employment”,“education”, cultural preservation”, “housing” and “family income”. Sometimes “thecommunity” engaged in project planning is a subset of the overall community. Thecommunity subset might be the community elders, local school student population, or anyof the definable sub-populations found in your community. A school’s parentassociation, for example, may develop a long range goal that describes a communitywhere all children graduate from high school, where a large percentage of graduates goon to some form of higher education, and where funding is sufficient to provideassistance so that students can attend their postsecondary school of choice. There may bemany other characteristics that could define the desired situation for this “studentcommunity.”The point is to envision an overall community, or a subset of the community, living in anideal situation. If you could snap your fingers and create the perfect community whatwould it look like? What are its characteristics? What kinds of opportunities forachieving stability and self-sufficiency are available? What resources are available forthe members of the community? This activity provides a framework for constructinglong-range community goals that point in the right direction. You envision a place wherethe people’s problems and needs are met. Then design a plan that moves in the directionof that “perfect” place.Refer to Appendix C for additional long range goals statements.2A. Conduct a Community Assessment to Identify the Problem
A successful project is one that was designed based on a good understanding of thecommunity conditions and identifies the problems preventing the community fromachieving its long-range goal(s). Community conditions include aspects of thecommunity such as its geographic location, demographics, ecosystem, and history. Acommunity assessment can be conducted to identify the problem(s) and determinewhich adverse current community condition a project will address. A communityassessment can also be used to gather information once a specific problem has beenidentified, in order to design a project that will effectively address the problem.There are several methods of conducting a community assessment and different methodsare appropriate for different situations. The method used should be selected based on theinformation you are collecting in order to produce a useful result. You can also use morethan one method, and are encouraged to do so, as this will produce more comprehensiveresults and better describe current conditions in your community.Before beginning a community assessment, it can be helpful to make a list of the piecesof information you are trying to find, the source of each piece of information, and themeans of gathering each piece of information. The following table can be used for thisexercise (for a complete blank table, see Appendix D).Information RequiredIdentify types of itemspurchased by tourists inother regions of thePacific.Source of InformationMeans of GatheringInformationContact native businesses Survey and follow-upin heavily visited areas of with phone callsthe Pacific.CommentsContact Pacific Nativeregional and villagecorporations to identifynative businesses.All of the information you gather during a community assessment is valuable and can beused as a basis for defining a problem and determining the goal, objectives, and activitiesfor your project.Some questions to keep in mind when planning and conducting a community assessment: What conditions are being assessed? By whom? For whom? Why?Whose adverse conditions do the findings describe?Refer to Appendix B for methods of conducting a community assessment.
Problems (negative current conditions) are those things that would have to change - or beovercome - in order to achieve the long-range goals of a socially and economicallyhealthy community. Problems can be internal as well as external and identifying thespecific problems is critical in designing a successful project.Once you have completed your community assessment, you can define and describeproblems in your community. The next step is to select the problem or problems youwish to address with your project through a community-based planning process. Aproject is generally more successful if it focuses on either one large problem or a smallamount of specific problems, as this will help keep the scope of your project withinachievable boundaries.Once any problems to be addressed have been identified, the community can designsolutions to reduce or eliminate the identified problem. It is better to generate as manyideas as possible through focus groups and/or other community brainstorming methods,assisted by your project planning committee.List as many ideas as you can think of-these could become the basis for your project.The ideas will directly address the list of problems to be overcome and will become thebasis for your problem statement.A problem statement describes a current critical condition or set of conditions affecting adefined group of people in a specific place at a specific time. The problem statementshould include a clear, concise, and precise description of the nature, scope, and severityof the problem or problems the project will address. Typically, the statement identifiesthe specific physical, economic, social, financial, governmental, institutional, behavioral,native language, or cultural challenges of the community. The statement will include theinformation gathered from your needs assessment.Preparing the problem statement is a critical part of the project planning process as it willbe included in your application and must prove that your proposed project addresses andmeets an important need in your organization and community. The design and purposeof your project must also directly relate to your problem statement.Below, find a sample problem statement:
The number of Pacific Island youth not completing high school has risen 1% each yearfor the past ten year. The community assessment also found that the Pacific Island youthare not identifying with their native culture and language and the numbers of Nativelanguage speakers are declining by 6% each year.In developing your problem statement, there are some things to keep in mind: The problem to be addressed should have a clear relationship to yourorganization’s mission, purpose, and long-term goals.Include accompanying information such as statistical facts, testimonials,interviews, and survey results provide additional support for your efforts toaddress the problem.The problem you identify should be within your organization’s capacity toaddress using available resources.Be sure to include documentation of community involvement.Think about what the long-term impact will be
leadership, and a grant writer or consultant if necessary. The committee members play an . the public process should include the many different perspectives that exist in the community, as this will help build unity around the project. . group’s suggestions on flip chart pages, then give each participant three sticky
work/products (Beading, Candles, Carving, Food Products, Soap, Weaving, etc.) ⃝I understand that if my work contains Indigenous visual representation that it is a reflection of the Indigenous culture of my native region. ⃝To the best of my knowledge, my work/products fall within Craft Council standards and expectations with respect to
1.3 Purpose of Planning 1-2 1.4 Project Planning Metrics 1-3 1.5 Planning Cycle 1-4 1.6 Levels of Planning 1-5 1.7 Monitoring and Controlling a Project 1-7 2 CREATING A PROJECT PLAN 2-1 2.1 Understanding Planning and Scheduling Software 2-1 2.2 Understanding your Project 2-2 2.3 Level 1 – Planning Without Resources 2-3
Project Risk Management A project planning enables project manager to translate project requirement into Work breakdown structure (WBS), tasks list, Gantt charts, resource assignment and risk register, etc. Once project charter is approved, the project is formally initiated. Project planning activity can begin
as a natural extension of project planning, which it addresses in the APM publication Introduction to Project Planning.2 The APM Planning SIG believes that effective planning and control are both essential for successful project management. It believes that truly effective control is only possible when effective planning has been undertaken.
The project planning matrix is a flexible tool and must be used to meet the needs of the planners. The manual shows how the project planning matrix can be used at each of the following stages of the common project cycle. These are: Stage One: Project identification, Stage Two: Project planning and review, Stage Three: Project .
of duration is called Aggregate Planning as obvious from the following diagram. Planning process Long range planning ( strategic planning)(for 1-5 years of duration) Intermediate range planning ( aggregate planning)(for 3-12 months) Short term planning (for scheduling and planning for day to day shop floor activities). (for 1-90 days)
Project success is one of the most important topic in project management (Prabhakar, 2009). Importance of the project success varies by the contract of the project, type of project and individual role of personality in project also (Muller & Jugdev, 2012). Project success comprises of two parts. First is success of project management and
IV. PMO Project Management Lifecycle (Refer to attachment 2 - OIT PMO Project Management Lifecycle) The Project Management Process governs the project life-cycle which is comprised of the following five phases: 1. Project Initiating phase 2. Project Planning phase 3. Project Funding phase 4. Project Executing phase 5. Project Closing phase
