"Who's Responsible For This Mess?"

I think we all heard that as children.

I doubt we often heard our parents say, "Who's responsible for this tidiness?"

Which is why a lot of people - managers and project teams - don't actually like responsibility. It's much easier - and much safer - to follow the plan, stick to the budget, and tick all the boxes. And if the project outcome isn't achieved, at least it's all tidy.

But what is responsibility anyway?

Let's talk about stakeholders.
 
After all, they are the most important part of any project. As development workers we are service providers, and our most important stakeholders are the end users of our services - the target communities we serve, whoever they may be - mothers, IDPs, girl children ...
 
Before we do, let's remember that in RBM we have a huge focus on the fundamentals - the situation analysis. And I think people have become sloppy with LFA over the years (many of you will object) and treat it as a box-filling exercise (to get all those boxes 'ticked' with your donors), and they let Log Frames take the attention away from communities. And that suits managers with their elite development languages and their Gantt charts, but doesn't really reflect how projects function and communities' real needs. Unless, as I say, it's done right. And there is a school of thought that says Results-Based Management is simply 'LFA done right'.     

It's a tough environment out there.

Funding is in many areas declining, and donors are expecting more value-for-money. In today's results-focused environment, where every dollar has to count, how do we go about identifying projects that are worth supporting and donors will get behind?

Let's remember donors are accountable, too. Whether they are a faith-based organisation reporting to church-goers back home or a bilateral development organisation answering difficult questions in parliament the next time 'foreign aid' comes under scrutiny.

And, of course, what we do has to matter, to make a difference - and create a positive, measurable change for the communities we serve.

Now your donors will have a checklist when evaluating any proposal, and those will vary from organisation to organisation. But there are always three broad things to consider when identifying a project - value, capacity and support.

Successful projects are focused on solving problems.

Unfortunately, many organisations seem to be focused on activities rather than positive change.

It's natural.

‘What we do’ takes up a lot of our energy, and sometimes, as a result, we lose sight of the destination.

Many times people have asked me to examine their potential project ideas – and, so often, these are all activities, or just one action. For example, ‘We plan to set up a home for street children’ or ‘We will raise awareness about contraceptive use among Commercial Sex Workers’.

Now, there's nothing wrong with activities – of course not. But none of these defines a problem to be solved or describes a positive situation as the end result. Thinking only in terms of activities, however 'good' or  'right' they may be, can have a negative effect on the success of any project plan or proposal.

Writing reports - we seem to do a lot of it.

And no-one can deny it matters - tracking outputs and progress towards higher-level results, helping management make decisions that steer projects, and of, course, accountability to our donors and other stakeholders - yes, reports do matter.

In over 20 years training people to write better, I know having an understanding of Professional Writing and following a writing process helps a great deal. But I've also seen many humanitarian workers (managers included) don't seem to have a process for reporting itself.

For sure, templates may exist - and staff may even be trained on working with the format. And if you have a decent M&E system, you will definitely have a list of indicators, Key Evaluation Questions and shared tools for gathering and analysing the data.

So why is reporting still one of those responsibilities that sits like a black cloud on the horizon and then suddenly becomes urgent as we rush to put it all together to meet a deadline?

Now, I can't share everything I know in just one post.

But I can outline some of the important steps to help you be more systematic about creating your reports.

So here goes.

As humanitarian and community development workers, we seem to do an awful lot of writing - proposals, field reports, evaluations, case studies ...

Of course, reporting is an important part of any MELS / accountability system. And while for many of us collecting and analysing the data isn't such an issue, communicating is - especially if English isn't our first language.

And are we supposed to write like those fancy UN reports we see when we are telling stories from the field?

And what is Professional Writing anyway?

EVER WONDERED HOW A RESULTS-BASED PROJECT DIFFERS FROM ONE FOCUSED JUST ON IMPLEMENTATION?

A couple of years ago I had back-to-back assignments on two continents. And it was interesting to see the huge difference between a project that focused on results and prioritised M&E, and one that focused on implementation.

The irony was that both projects were doing exactly the same things - training farmers.

First stop was Ethiopia, where Sasakawa Africa had invited me to come edit their five-year review of lessons learned from a country-wide agricultural development project. Luckily, I'd already trained 3 of the team in Professional Writing, and it was great to see they'd shared the skills and even used Mind Manager software to develop the document. That meant that, although a dozen different authors were involved, their initial work was well-organised and, as editing goes, straightforward.

PROJECT RESULTS MATTER

And those results - the outputs, outcomes and impact - need to be monitored and ultimately measured. This isn't just to keep donors happy - although we'd all like that. But project monitoring:

• Lets management and important stakeholders understand how much progress we are making
• Means we can make decisions in good time to keep the project on track
• Gives us a basis for evaluation and learning

And evaluation allows us to:

• Compare actual results with those planned or expected
• Understand whether the projects objectives were achieved and relevant
• Measure the project's efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability
  

Knowing what to expect at different points in the project leads to better data collection - and better management decisions.

But, too often, we try to collect data that isn't there (yet) - or overlook valuable insights from stakeholders that can guide the project towards successful achievement of results.

Did you know there are, broadly, four different levels of information we collect from end users throughout a project's life-cycle? End users - or, if you prefer, the direct beneficiaries /target group - the people who actually experience the project services and inputs - are always our most valuable primary source of information.

And other stakeholders - those indirectly affected - can give us insights, too.

Of course, if a project has just started, it's obvious that it's way too early to measure impact - so what can we reasonably expect at different points, and how can we build up a consistent picture of what is happening on the ground on what changes are being realised?

The four levels of information we can look for are:

• Reactions and Feelings
• Learning and Knowledge
• Change in Behaviour
• Impact

Some of these emerge early in the project. Others take longer to appear. But knowing what to expect, and building on the levels as we start to see change, gives us a better, more complete understanding of the project's strengths, weaknesses and benefits.

While effective evaluation needs to address all four levels. However, at earlier stages in the project we may not expect to be able to easily evaluate the higher levels.