Taking a project from paper to reality requires planning, foresight and flexibility when things do not go as envisioned. For initiatives like GIRLS Inspire, there are lots of items that need to be juggled, including tight deadlines, budgets, work plans, staffing, team building – the list can go on. The transition from on paper plans to reality requires lots of planning, creative thinking and navigating the unexpected.
The temporary nature of project planning means that there is often a lot of work to do in a short period of time. Projects of any kind are limited by time, depth and budget. For international development projects, there is also other considerations of reaching targets, creating impact and ensuring sustainability of the project once it is complete.
GIRLS Inspire launched a year ago and after one year of program delivery in five countries, there are many stories and lessons to be shared. One year has allowed us as a global team to build out process and procedures for the work that we do. The GIRLS Inspire Community of Practice is an excellent space to build project management expertise, as each of us has unique experiences to share on this topic.
That is why our webinar is timed with two important events. First is the GIRLS Inspire Training Manual, found here , which is a great tool for institutionalizing our project procedures. Second has been the wrap up of the Reaching the Unreached project, funded by the Government of Australia. Mann Deshi, in India, will be presenting an overview of its one year project, sharing successes and challenges during the webinar.
In preparation for our webinar, here is some food for thought:
- What are some success stories in your project so far?
- What are some challenges you experience? How did you solve them?
1 thought on “Project Management: How does this relate to our work?”
Greetings to all CoP members!
It was nice for me to participate in the last webinar and know the excellent way of capacity building through sharing the context-specific experiences and guidelines. It was a unique type of webinar in terms of its design. After the webinar, it will help the participants learn the scope of using the manual in their own context intelligently. Manual is always a standard guideline, but everybody has to use it intelligently or rationally to have better impact in their own context. From this webinar, we saw how a project planning and implementation can be unique in terms of its context-driven intelligent design. Moreover, we learnt how a manual can be a living document for managing a project directed to a theory of change! The webinar offered excellent take-aways for me. Thanks Mr. Kuntal for his excellent presentation. he made the project activities nicely visible and worth receiving.
I am curious to know one thing: Is there any possibility to document the experiences of the Girls Inspire projects implemented in different contexts and somehow integrate them into the manual as case studies?
Thanks a lot the Girls Inspire Team – especially Frances, Charisse and Kristina – for creating this excellent opportunities for us.
Looking forward to more discussion on the issue,
Mostafa
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