Project Planning
Demonstrating Need
Before commencing with any project, you should be able to demonstrate that there is a need for it amongst your target audience. This might be relatively easy if a local project ties in with a national campaign, or if a local needs assessment has already been carried out; for example the local food and health action plan has highlighted that a rural area has poor access to healthy foods. If your idea for an initiative is based on your own thoughts, you will need to gather some basic data to demonstrate that your thoughts are well founded.
You will also want to show how your project will fit in with your authorities’ priorities or corporate aims and objectives, and how it compliments the service that your team delivers; for example, it might help local businesses comply with the law or educate consumers to be able to choose healthier food choices. Being able to demonstrate these links clearly is important if the project moves away from ‘traditional’ Trading Standards or Environmental Health work.
Aims and Objectives
Once you have demonstrated that your project is worthwhile you can move on to consider the aims and objectives. Aims are what you want to achieve from the project, and objectives are how and what you are going to do to achieve the aims.
Both aims and objectives should be specific, focused and realistic (given resource constraints and timescales). Each aim should be linked to one or more objective. They also need to be measured in some way so that you can evaluate your project at its completion; i.e. what are the measures of success? At this stage, therefore you also need to think how the project will be evaluated. For example, if you want to achieve a change in behaviour or show increased knowledge amongst a group you might need to carry out a ‘before’ and ‘after’ evaluation. Also, it may be appropriate to carry out some evaluation mid way through the project or after an important milestone or event so that you can monitor how well you are progressing at achieving your aim.
The objectives that you decide upon can then help form the action plan which delivers the project. Remember that aims and objectives can change as the project develops. You might realise halfway through that your goals were unachievable and need adjusting or you might have achieved them already and so need to raise the bar!
Identify partners
It might become apparent that you will need the help of other individuals or organisations in order to achieve your aims. This could range from delivering the whole project in partnership to consultation or advice on specific parts only. The roles and responsibilities of each organisation or person need to be clarified at an early stage. Also think about whether any training is required for those staff delivering the project.
Who are the target audience?
Identifying the target audience is important because you need to check that what you want to achieve (aim) and how you want to do it (objectives) are appropriate to reach the target audience; you could consider consultation or a pilot exercise to help with this. Who the target audiences are may also impact upon your evaluation methods. Examples of this could include people who do not speak English, people who cannot read/write or groups with specific cultural/religious beliefs connected with food. You might want to investigate whether your target audience is represented as a group and approach them in this way, or perhaps one of your partner organisations already has links which could be utilised.
Budget and Resources
Before planning your project in detail, you need to ensure that your budget and resources match the initiative that you want to deliver. You need to determine;
- What your budget is (if any)
- Are project partners contributing any budget? If so, how much is it and what activities can it be used for? Is the funding time specific and does continued funding depend upon success?
- Are there any grant or sponsorship opportunities, or will the project create revenue? (and what is the forecasted revenue?)
- What resources will be needed to deliver the project and do they have any costs? e.g. printing/design promotional materials, sampling costs, translation costs, venue hire, equipment purchases, publicity/marketing etc.
- How much time will be required to set up, deliver and evaluate the project? If the project is being delivered as part of the routine work of a team, it is important to given proper consideration to time allocations as this is frequently underestimated. Remember to consider how much time any partners can contribute as well.
- Do you need a contingency plan for exceeding your budget or timescale for delivery?
Planning the project delivery
Having an action plan for delivery will help to ensure that the elements of the project are carried out in the right sequence and at the right time. The objectives of the project can form the basis of an action plan; you may want to add more information to them or split them down into smaller steps. Assign project team members to carry out each of the steps, allocate time and resources and budget to each step and work backwards from the end point so you know what date each step should be started/completed. By doing this you might also determine that some steps in the action plan are critical – they must be started or completed by a certain date in order for the project to be delivered on time.
There are simple charts and computer programmes which can plot this information for you (for example Gannt charts); they show which steps in the project are critical and which activities can run concurrently. Remember to include how you are going to evaluate your initiative in the planning as well, because you need to know what methods of data collection are going to be used. You might need to carry out some evaluation before the whole project has finished, for example if you are providing four training sessions you might want to collect feedback from each session at the end, so that later sessions can be adapted according to comments from session 1.
Also remember to check the food vision website for case studies (www.foodvision.gov.uk) which may have similarities to yours – their evaluation and lessons learnt could be valuable.
Report and publicise
Consider who you need to report to at the end of the initiative; this might include partner agencies or organisations that have provided funding. You may have publicised your project as it was in progress; but now think about also publicising it after you have collected the evaluation information as well. You might want to apply for an award to recognise your good work and remember to submit a case study to the Food Vision website!