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Project cycle planning

Periodic reviews can be useful to review the overall strategy, workplans and budgets of a project. Strategic review and re-planning may involve a fundamental reassessment and repositioning of the project as a whole, or simply refine different elements or aspects of it. It can also contribute to a review of wider aspects of the NGO’s implementation, organisational management or learning systems. NGO / CBO support providers (NSPs) may help their partners to do project reviews in order to define future requirements for technical support and financial support, if funding is being provided.

Project cycle planning will involve learning from different information sources. These could include the initial assessment report, project monitoring documentation, evaluation reports, and sometimes specific pieces of extra research. With a project of several years’ duration, it may be important to commission a new assessment, to explore how needs and services have changed. Important undocumented information can be included by involving key stakeholders in the review process. It is also important to include up-to-date financial and funding information.

The results of review and re-planning can vary considerably ranging from minor changes and improvements to a complete overhaul of working methods and approaches, or even a termination of the project (if it is not meeting needs). In the wider context of the organisation as a whole and the local service network, the results can range from scaling up the project, through replicating its methods or approaches in other projects, to identifying a need to complement its work with other projects or services.

Another common result of project review and re-planning is the discovery that performance monitoring or evaluation systems need overhaul, because they have not provided answers to all the key questions that the review team would like to see answered.

Issues to consider

• Organisations change as projects develop and grow. This can enable the organisation as a whole, by attracting more funding or greater resources, and de-stabilise by altering the balance of work within the CBO or NGO. NSPs can use the project review process to help CBOs or NGOs anticipate and respond to these changes.
• The very success of a pilot project can sometimes threaten its integrity. There may be pressure to scale it up or replicate it so quickly that some of its core expertise or impact is diluted or neglected.

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