Designing a successful project is a process, not an event. Every project follows a cycle that takes it through time from beginning to end. While there are a number of variations in the project cycle, the basic premise is the same: in all cases, work is divided into a number of stages in order to more effectively manage the process over time. For the purpose of this CD-ROM, we outline a project cycle with the following five stages:
Stage 1 Define the strategy
Stage 2 Develop work plans
Stage 3 Implement actions
Stage 4 Monitor results and progress
Stage 5 Analyze and adjust the project
In the project cycle, we begin by defining where we want to go and articulating how to get there. Then we proceed to implementing our first generation of ideas. During implementation, we collect data to monitor how the world and our understanding of it are changing with time. Are local communities more engaged in sustainable resource use and biodiversity conservation initiatives? Are protected area authorities increasingly effective at carrying out a variety of management activities? Are illegal logging and bushmeat hunting decreasing? Are the people we train in workshops using the information they learn? By monitoring and analyzing information about the changing world, we are better prepared to revisit the initial design, adjusting our goals and our activities, as necessary.
Each stage of the project cycle requires different skills, steps, and techniques to effectively manage the process. The key is to develop a planned, organized approach to bringing your project to fruition.
Why is it important to have a systematic approach to biodiversity conservation projects?
People use resources sustainably or conserve them by choice. The purpose of conservation efforts is to get people to make this choice. To do this, we must help people who can affect a resource to desire to conserve it, and then to act on that desire. This is very easy to say and is very complicated, involved, and time consuming to do.
At the heart of the matter, we seek to help people act in new ways that will maintain resources rather than deplete them. We are asking them to change. Change is difficult, even when we desire the change. It challenges our perspective of the world and our place in the world, so leading change is exceptionally challenging.
To succeed, those who seek to foster such change need to be very clear about what the changes are that they are striving for, how they will get there, and how they will know when they have arrived. The project cycle framework presented here lays out a systematic method to help define these conditions.
Social science tools and project success
The most common reasons for failure of projects big and small are: - Unclear project expectations lead to inappropriate or incomplete results.
- Necessary changes in the scope of the project are not understood or agreed upon by the project stakeholders-people who have an interest or stake in the end result of the project-leading to varying views of the results, budget or time frame for the project.
- Disagreements among stakeholders regarding the expectations of the project lead to dissatisfaction with the end results.
- Not enough resources are made available to complete the project. These resources include people, time and money.
- Not enough time is set aside to complete the project.
A number of tools and techniques are available to conservation practitioners to help to avoid many of these common pitfalls. Social science tools are especially helpful for providing conservation practitioners with insight into the complex social, economic, institutional, political and even ecological context within which projects take place. Social science tools are also key for managing the diverse expectations of project stakeholders, such as the project team members, the target audiences, sponsors or donors, government representatives, or other people who have an interest in the project. Ultimately, social science tools help conservation practitioners to plan better, gain consensus among diverse groups of people, and communicate more effectively, leading to greater biodiversity conservation results.
Would you like more information about how to effectively design and manage biodiversity conservation projects throughout the project cycle?
Measures of Success: Designing, Measuring and Monitoring Conservation and Development Projects
By Richard Margoluis and Nick Salafsky, 1998, Island Press
This is a practical, hands-on guide to designing, managing, and measuring the impacts of community-oriented conservation and development projects. It presents a simple, clear, logical, and yet comprehensive approach to developing and implementing effective programs, and can help conservation and development practitioners use principles of adaptive management to test assumptions about their projects and learn from the results.
English (382 pages, ISBN 1-55963-612-2, available from Island Press at: www.islandpress.org)
Español (386 páginas, PDF, 7.51 MB)
Adaptive Management: A Tool for Conservation Practitioners
By Nick Salafsky and Richard Margoluis, 2001, Biodiversity Support Program
Adaptive management is growing in popularity as a concept in conservation circles. The purpose of the Biodiversity Support Program's research was to determine how to make adaptive management a practical tool for conservation practitioners around the world. Literature review combined with field testing revealed that adaptive management must be done by project managers themselves and requires establishing a clear purpose, developing an explicit model of the project site, selecting actions that maximize results and learning, developing and implementing a monitoring plan to test assumptions, analyzing data, communicating results, and then using these results to adapt and learn.
English (52 pages, PDF, 1.7 MB)
Greater than the Sum of Their Parts: Designing Conservation and Development Programs to Maximize Results and Learning
By Nick Salafsky and Richard Margoluis, 1999, Biodiversity Support Program
A practical guide aimed at helping conservation and development program managers and donors reflect on how the principles of adaptive management can maximize results and learning.
English (29 pages, PDF, 3,428 KB)
Español (29 páginas, PDF, 650 KB)
Plan to Succeed: A Systematic Approach to Designing and Using Program Strategies
By David Gambill, 2003
This document outlines a systematic method to help design successful program strategies. It covers the process of defining the strategy's goals and vision, objectives and activities and work plans. Project implementation, monitoring, analysis and adjustments are also covered.
English (17 pages, PDF)
Would you like more information about how to better engage a variety of stakeholders in all stages of a conservation project?
Beyond Fences: Seeking Social Sustainability in Conservation
Edited by Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend, 1997, World Conservation Union (IUCN)
Beyond Fences is designed to help professionals involved in conservation initiatives to identify the social concerns that are relevant for their work, assess options for action and implement them. Volume 1 is a companion to a process of planning, evaluating or re-designing a conservation initiative; an experience of 'learning by doing' expected to involve a series of meetings and field-based activities. Volume 2 is a reference book to be consulted, as needed, at various stages in the same process.
English (2 volumes, ISBN 2-8317-0340-9, available online at: http://www.iucn.org/themes/spg/Files/beyond_fences/beyond_fences.html)
Stakeholder Collaboration: Building Bridges for Conservation
By Ecoregional Conservation Strategies Unit, 2000, World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
By explaining the principles of collaboration, introducing a range of tools, and reporting on a number of case studies from around the world, this resource book aims to help practitioners and stakeholders develop new and innovative relationships with those individuals and institutions who can help make collaboration a reality. This resource has been designed as an introduction to the stakeholder themes and issues that you are likely to face when implementing ecoregional conservation.
English (74 pages, PDF, 427 KB)
Our People, Our Resources: Supporting Rural Communities in Participatory Action Research on Population Dynamics and the Local Environment
By Thomas Barton, Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend, Alex de Sherbinin and Patrizio Warren, 1997, World Conservation Union (IUCN)
This handbook illustrates concepts, methods and tools for primary environmental care, an approach that seeks to empower communities to meet basic needs while protecting the environment. In particular, it focuses on how population size, structure, growth (or decline) and movements relate to the quality of the environment and the quality of life. Emphasis is placed on a community-led process of participatory action research in which local knowledge and skills and fully utilized. The main purpose is to promote the effective, integrated management of environment and population dynamics for the benefit of local people in rural communities.
English (HTML, available online at: http://www.iucn.org/themes/spg/Files/opor/opor.html)
A New Weave of Power, People and Politics: The Action Guide for Advocacy and Citizen Participation
By Lisa VeneKlasen and Valerie Miller, © 2002 World Neighbors
This excerpt contains the introductory chapter of the book A New Weave of Power, People and Politics: A Guide for Learning, Exploration, and Adaptation in the Context of Citizen Participation and Advocacy. This guide offers tools and best practices for citizen participation, advocacy, rights-based approaches, good governance, gender analysis and women's political participation.
English (18 pages, PDF, 153 KB)
Do you need tools for institutional assessment to improve your organization's program management capabilities?
Institutional Self-Assessment: A Tool for Strengthening Nonprofit Organizations
By R. Devine, A. Hitz-Sanchez, J. Keenan, P. Leon, P. MacLeod, B. McGean, B. Moffat, S. Rust, © 2001 The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
This tool assists organizations in determining their current level of development based on eight core institutional areas. The core areas are: strategic vision and planning; leadership; organizational management; human resources; resource development; financial management; constituency building and outreach; and programmatic capacity. This self-analysis becomes the starting point for intentional organizational improvement initiatives.
English (30 pages, PDF, 134 KB)
Español (31 páginas, PDF, 144 KB)
Excerpts: From the Roots Up: Strengthening Organizational Capacity through Guided Self-Assessment
By Peter Gubbels and Catheryn Koss, 2000, World Neighbors
This manual seeks to strengthen organizational capacity by providing tools and methods for self-assessment. It explains key areas for organizational capacity building, including: representative decision making; communication systems; collaboration with other groups; negotiation for services; identification and prioritization of problems; implementation of activities; lobbying for local interests; clarity of vision and purpose; systems for raising revenue; mobilizing human capital; and monitoring and evaluation.
English (47 pages, PDF, 3.39 MB)
Are you interested in reading more about how to influence human behavior in favor of biodiversity conservation?
Understanding and Influencing Behaviors: A Guide
By Bruce A. Byers, © 2000 Biodiversity Support Program
This book, designed for field practitioners, explains methods for identifying, collecting, and analyzing information about people's behaviors toward the environment. By understanding the root causes of unsustainable behaviors, lasting solutions can be found to conservation and natural resources management issues. This document is the culmination of BSP Africa's Analysis of Behaviors in Conservation and Development project, which was begun in 1992.
English (76 pages, PDF, 789 KB)
Français (76 pages, PDF, 808 KB)
Starting with Behavior: A Participatory Process for Selecting Target Behaviors in Environmental Programs
By Elizabeth Mills Booth, 1996, Environmental Education and Communication Project (GreenCOM), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
The guide describes a practical, participatory process that can be used to select target behaviors and develop effective education, communication, and promotional strategies. The process can be applied to any type of environmental program that is working with individuals, groups, or organizations to conserve the environment or resolve environmental problems.
English (103 pages, PDF, 2.24 MB)
Español (97 páginas, PDF, 1.32 MB)
The Applied Behavior Change (ABC) Framework: Environmental Applications
By B.A. Day and W.A. Smith, 1996, Academy for Educational Development (AED)
This paper describes the application of the Applied Behavior Change (ABC) Framework to environmental behavior change. The ABC Framework has been developed over 20 years of applied social marketing in the fields of health, nutrition and AIDS communication. The framework requires an understanding of the local system of community and individual attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. It is meant to be practical, iterative, multi-leveled and requires continual monitoring and modification of inputs to address the dynamic nature of local individuals, communities and environmental problems.
English (8 pages, PDF, 91 KB)
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©2003 Community Conservation Coalition |
Boletin Mensual: June 2008
