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PROJECT
PLANNING
This following section (from the 1998 Draft PI Handbook)
discusses the essential elements of project planning and is
intended to assist you as you plan and implement projects for
your committee. We will be using an example of a Library Book
Project to illustrate the project planning process.
Goals
a) Set the goals for your project.
What do you wish to accomplish?
b) Goals should be: Simple, Attainable, and Measurable.
For example:
"We want to put our Basic Text in libraries."
It is simple.
c) Whether it is attainable is not known because it isn’t
adequately defined.
It is not measurable.
d) A better goal would be:
"We want to place two Basic Text books in libraries
each month in language(s) common to that community, until all
the public, college, high school, hospital, and jail libraries
in the area and have a copy of our book."
It is simple: place books in libraries.
It is attainable: two books each month.
It is measurable: it defines the types of
libraries to be filled and how many books each month.
e) Write down the goals and refer to them to help keep your
committee on track.
Accountability
Public Information subcommittees are not autonomous groups in
NA, they are subcommittees that are accountable to a service
body. The PI chairperson is the single point of accountability
for the entire committee and is responsible for giving timely,
accurate, and complete reports to the ASC or RSC.
For each project undertaken by PI, the point of accountability
should be clearly defined, such as a project leader or
coordinator. After defining accountability, a you should
establish a budget and clearly define all responsibilities.
Project leaders are responsible for making timely, accurate, and
complete reports to the PI subcommittee so that its leadership
will be able to adequately prepare its report on the activities
of the PI subcommittee as a whole.
For example:
a)
A project leader is assigned by the committee.
b)
At each meeting the project leader reports where the
books were placed.
c)
At the ASC meeting, the PI Chair reports where the books
were placed.
Timelines
Develop a timeline and set milestones for the project.
Timelines are developed backward, from the end to the
beginning. Set your timeline before you begin your project.
Timelines often have two parts: planning and implementation.
Timeline
Example
Planning Portion of Timeline:
a)
January: Start placing two books each month (taken from
our goals).
b)
December: Purchase two books (or get them as part of
funding from ASC). Project leader presents sample cover letter
for approval by the committee.
c)
November: Committee approves the project and a budget,
including all costs.
d)
October: The project leader gives a report on the number
of libraries, and how long the project will take to complete.
The project leader also finds an assistant so that he or she
won’t be going alone to place the books.
e)
September: The committee decides to investigate a library
project, appoints a project leader and sets the timeline.
Implementation part of timeline
a)
Each October, investigate any new library sites and
verify that our book is still in the libraries on our list. A
budget and timeline will be prepared if additional books are
needed to be placed in the following year.
b)
Each September: begin training new people to take over
the project for the next year (if there is a next year).
c)
After all books have been placed, the committee will
contact each location periodically to ensure that sure the books
are still in place.
d)
Each month:
e)
Acquire two books for the project.
f)
Place two books in libraries.
g)
Write thank you notes to libraries that accepted books
last month.
h)
Report which libraries received books this month and keep
a detailed list.
Common
Timeline Characteristics
Each project can generate its own timeline but the
characteristics common to all projects are:
a)
Be specific about details.
b)
Work backwards.
c)
Include all the actions which need to take place in order
to implement the project.
The preparation of a timeline can help the committee determine
whether it has sufficient financial and human resources to
implement the project. Sometimes there just isn’t enough time
to properly prepare and it is best to not proceed with a project
that cannot be adequately implemented.
The committee can help organize itself by preparing an annual
calendar containing a more general type of timeline.
Significant annual events like elections, regional conventions,
learning days, deadline for budget, etc. can be placed on the
calendar so important committee business is not forgotten.
Budgeting
and Resources
Your committee must determine the financial and human resources
for each project. As with the timeline, you should be
specific.
Remember to include all expenses for the project. You might
want to consider the following list:
a)
literature costs
b)
fees with outside organizations
c)
equipment needed
d)
copies
e)
postage
f)
telephone
g)
mileage
A
budget is not just prepared and then filed. The budget should
be a working document referred to and updated throughout
the project or throughout the committee’s year. Consider all
your resources when planning your financial and human budgets.
Let us continue with our Library Book example. Its financial
budget includes expenses for the following:
a)
two books each month
b)
copying for cover letters to accompany books
c)
copies of our NA, A Resource in Your Community IP
for the librarians
d)
a thank you card for each library on list
e)
stamps to mail the thank you cards
f)
rubber stamp with area contact phone number and mailing
address
g)
ink pad
Some committees operate with an annual or monthly budget amount
approved by their area or region; then throughout the year, the
committee selects project on a case by case basis as they come
before the committee. Committee resources include not only
money, but also:
a)
materials (such as literature)
b)
equipment (such as literature racks or tapes public
service announcements)
c)
human resources (committee members and volunteers)
Resources
outside the committee include:
a)
assistance from other Public Information committees
b)
trusted servants from neighboring areas and regions, and
at the world-level
c)
cooperation from other subcommittees in your location
In
the Library Book example, we decided that we need three people
working on the project so there will always be two available to
visit the libraries and place each book.
Priorities
Since a committee is rarely able to do all the projects it would
like to do because of financial and human limitations, it must
set priorities. Your committee will have to evaluate its
options and make decisions. One method that may help is to set
levels of priorities. Some areas consider meeting
schedules and phonelines to be the highest priorities for Public
Information. After these high priorities are met, it might
consider booths at public events, presentations to schools and
professionals, and community meetings as next highest
priorities, with media public service announcements, a mailing
list for the meeting schedule, and billboards as the lowest
priority for a particular year. Priorities may change from year
to year due to differences in available financial and human
resources.
The committee might want to develop a list of criteria to help
evaluate projects and determine where each one fits in the
committee’s priority list.
Some helpful questions might be:
a)
Will the project further NA purposes?
b)
How many people are we likely to reach with this
project?
c)
Which projects reach more people?
d)
Which projects do NA members care most about?
e)
Is this project supported by your area or region?
f)
Does the project fit into your financial resources;
exactly how much will it cost?
g)
Does this project support other aims of NA, such as H&I
work?
h)
Will it increase meeting attendance?
i)
Do we have sufficient people to implement the project?
j)
Do we have enough time to devote to the project?
k)
Do we have sufficient preparation time to effectively
implement the project?
l)
Is it controversial? (If it is, we might want to pass.)
m)
Do we have the experience or guidance necessary for this kind of
project?
n)
Are we familiar with the projected audience and what it
expects?
In our example, the area decided that a library book project was
less important than its meeting directory, phonelines,
presentations in schools, joint PI/H&I presentations, booths at
professional conferences, an annual learning day for the area,
four training sessions each year for new volunteers, and a
mailing list to send the meeting directories to professionals
who refer people to NA. Since, however, those projects were all
operating well, it decided to take on a new project. The
library book project was deemed more important than two other
project proposals—billboards and assembling a broadcast fax
database. It was determined to be equally important as public
service announcements, but volunteers on the committee were more
interested in pursuing the library book project, so the
committee chose to begin the library book project first.
Like goals, the priorities should also be clearly defined,
written down for reference, and then referred to throughout the
year to help keep the committee on track.
We have learned that it is better to choose not to do a project
than to do it poorly since NA’s image with the public may be
adversely affected.
Follow
Through
We must finish our projects and our reports. Too often we stop
our project at the main event: the presentation, the booth, the
learning day, the placement of the book. A committee
chair may begin to feel that donating two books each month to
libraries, or doing a presentation to another high school has
become boring and stop reporting on these activities to save
time. With new GSRs each month, we need to be aware that
although our reports may seem repetitive to us, they are brand
new to someone and we need to follow through with complete
reporting of our activities.
Follow-up after contact with the public will help committee
members to develop ongoing relationships. Thank you cards leave
a positive impression on people in the community, such as the
librarians we met in our book example. The project leader should
update contact lists continually. Those lists may be used by PI
project leaders working on other projects. For example: if they
wish to receive it, the libraries may be added to a mailing list
to send our updated meeting directory. Keeping written records
of our contacts will help next year’s project leader. For the
library book example, we want to reestablish contact each year
to make sure the books are still in place.
Follow-up within the committee is equally important. We want to
inventory our literature and provide a financial report to the
committee of all our expenses to help with the preparation of
future project budgets. We want to discuss the event’s success
with the volunteers, to learn what we can do to improve the next
one. When we train volunteers, we are training future project
leaders and future committee leaders. Some committees have
assistants for each project leader who are learning the skills
necessary to move into the leadership position at the next
election. We can keep people involved by having experienced
volunteers help with training sessions. Some project leaders
send thank you cards to volunteers after big events.
With our Library Book example, we might ask these follow-up
questions:
a)
Did we reach all the libraries on our list?
b)
What was their general reaction?
c)
Do we need a better letter of introduction?
d)
Did they also ask for information pamphlets?
e)
Is there a large portion of the community which speaks a
language other than our own? Do we have literature that we can
provide in those languages?
f)
Did any libraries refuse our donation? Why?
g)
Did we reach the correct contact person, or should we
change our approach?
Evaluation
and Assessment
It is important to get feedback from the community, the
volunteers who participate on projects, the PI committee
members, the ASC or RSC we serve, and the individual members of
the fellowship.
We can receive feedback by asking people to fill out
questionnaires after we have done a presentation. (See the
samples section of this handbook.) We can spend some time
talking with people to receive their feedback. We should make
note of any questions which are asked of us, in order to help us
modify our approach. This will aid us to give members of the
community the information which is important to them.
We should meet with volunteers after a project to find out what
worked and get suggestions for improvement. Here are some
sample questions we could ask them:
a)
Did we bring enough literature?
b)
Did we bring the right kind of literature, including
translated literature where applicable?
c)
Did we adequately answer their questions?
d)
How might we have answered the questions better?
e)
Was there anything else requested from the PI committee?
f)
Were the volunteers adequately trained?
g)
Have we been invited back; why or why not?
Project leaders should keep notes on the project and report to the
committee. Some committees have developed project procedures
books to supplement their committee guidelines and this
handbook. It helps with the rotation of service when an
outgoing project leaders is not available to train the new
leader, or when a project is periodic in nature without one
continuous project leader.
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