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Implement Strategy Using Sound Project Management

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Implement Strategy Using Sound Project Management

Purpose

Use project management best practices to implement strategy

Products

Charter
Workplan
Budget
Stakeholder engagement plan

This is where the rubber hits the road. As you prepare to implement your strategy, you will need to evaluate your staff capacity, clarify roles and responsibilities, draft a workplan and budget, use good project management principles to guide your work, and continue to build your stakeholders’ engagement.

(ALL INTERNAL AND LIMITED EXTERNAL RIGHTS) Passion Pictures crew film Samburu warriors digging wells for their cattle in Sara Conservancy in Northern Kenya for “Earth — A New Wild”. Photo credit: © Ami Vitale

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Draft a charter for your project team.

The charter clarifies roles and responsibilities within the project team, including who has decision making authority. Where the project is being implemented via a partnership, the charter should include partners and their roles. Charters also have sponsors. Final authority for the direction of the project rests with the project sponsors.

Tools You Can Use

Tools for chartering and managing teams

The Conservation Partnership Center provides guidance on negotiating and documenting roles and responsibilities. Conservancy staff can find additional resources about how to write charters, and many other aspects of project management at the Highly Effective Teams site on CONNECT.
Draft a workplan, budget, and fundraising plan.

The workplan identifies tasks and estimates when they will be started and completed, and the level of effort required to complete them. The budget and fundraising expectations should be realistic, and should include monitoring, evaluation, analysis, and outreach components, including those necessary to build the evidence base and mitigate risk. You can compare your proposed budget with relevant actual historical funding rates to get a sense of what is realistic.

Tools You Can Use

Work and capacity planning

This PowerPoint from Healthy Country Planning provides step-by-step guidance on work and capacity planning, and HCP provides a simple exercise to help teams get started. You can also use Miradi to do your work planning; the Miradi Guide to Work Planning will help you learn how.

Identify a no-go cutoff.

This is the funding level below which your strategy isn’t viable and the project should be terminated or put on hold until adequate funding becomes available. This should be clearly articulated to partners and relevant stakeholders to avoid creating unrealistic expectations.

Determine capacity needs.

Assess current staff and partner capacity and needs and develop a plan for meeting those needs. Develop a summary of full staffing needs, comparing needs with available existing capacity and identifying need for new hires. For each individual associated with the project, estimate the percent of their time that will be spent on the project. Identify any additional training that staff may require to effectively implement the project, and be sure to include the cost of that training in your budget. Conservancy staff can search learn@tnc for relevant trainings and webinars; trainings on conservationtraining.org are open to everyone.

Tools You Can Use

Tools for “backbone” organizations

The impact of a "backbone" organization on the success of a cross-sector, cross-system effort should not be underestimated. This toolkit from Spark Insight Partners focuses on the critical, strategic roles and actions a backbone organization – whether part of a collective impact initiative or other collaborative structure – can take to elevate the initiative’s overall work and impact.

Consider near-term and long-term costs.
Estimate costs in two phases. For the first phase (1–3 years), provide a realistic estimate of costs and capacity needed to implement selected strategies.

A later phase (2–5 years) can include more ambitious costs and capacity based on a realistic estimate of what it will actually take to achieve outcomes over the long term, which can inform fundraising efforts.
Pro Tips
- Don’t forget non-staff expenses
  
  These include equipment, supplies, travel, meetings, contracts, and other budget category needs necessary to fully implement the project.
- Identify a “plan B” approach
  
  If full funding does not come through, what will you do? Consider a partial or phased implementation of a strategy.
Consider building capacity with partners.

Building local capacity can be essential for the long term sustainability of conservation efforts. Capacity building efforts themselves require significant capacity for engagement and training, which should be taken into account when considering staffing needs.

Tools You Can Use

Building the capacity of partners.

Conservancy staff can find capacity building tools and resources in the Capacity Development Community on CONNECT, and the Learning Network on Capacity Development provides useful tools and guidance that are available to anyone.

Determine when and how to engage stakeholders.

Stakeholder engagement can be important in all stages of project development, not just the planning stages. This is especially important when working with indigenous peoples and local communities, as consultation throughout the life cycle of a project is critical to ensuring social safeguards are being implemented; Free, Prior and Informed Consent is consistently being pursued; and local knowledge is respected and incorporated as appropriate. Determine how and when you with consult with and update stakeholders during the project’s implementation.

Tools You Can Use

Tools for complex decision-making

Working on systems change means solving complex problems, which often means working with stakeholders from many different sectors. This toolkit from Spark Policy Institute is designed to help you explore how to structure a decision-making process amid complexity.
Monitor the progress of your strategy.

Implement the monitoring plan that you developed for your strategy.

Minimum Standard Questions

Does your charter identify the roles required to implement the project and specify decision-making authorities?
Does your workplan include a timeline that specifies when conservation outcomes will be achieved?
Do you know where additional capacity is needed and have a plan to build or obtain capacity needs?
Do you know when and how you will engage and inform stakeholders during implementation?

1 Comment

Olivia on May 24, 2018 at 12:36 am

I have found this article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review to be a useful resource as I think about how to foster and maintain effective collaborations, which will be necessary to achieve most if not all of our systems change goals. It includes a case study of the Santa Cruz Mountains Stewardship Network which was formed in late 2014. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/cutting_through_the_complexity_a_roadmap_for_effective_collaboration

Implement Strategy Using Sound Project Management

Draft a charter for your project team.

Draft a workplan, budget, and fundraising plan.

Identify a no-go cutoff.

Determine capacity needs.

Consider near-term and long-term costs.

Consider building capacity with partners.

Determine when and how to engage stakeholders.

Monitor the progress of your strategy.

1 Comment

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