Purpose
Defining the purpose of your work is the starting point for specifying the basic parameters of your project. You may find it useful to revisit your organization’s mission and current priorities and clarify any decisions that have already been made about the project. If this is an ongoing project or another iteration of the project, you should draw on what you and others have learned from this and similar projects. You can then describe the specific decisions and decision makers that this process will support, the expectations of decision makers, the timing of decisions, and assumptions about funding and other resources for the project. If you are collaborating with donors or other partners, you may want to compare and discuss the alignment of your respective purposes for the project.
At this point you may also think about how you will move through each step in the project management cycle. If you are already confident that the context within your scope and effectiveness of your interventions is based on best available evidence, you may decide to move quickly through the assessment and planning stages, and into implementation. This does not mean abandoning these steps, but it does mean working through the project cycle quickly and efficiently. Alternatively, you may need to work through each step of the project cycle systematically and in detail. Or you may use a combination of these approaches to achieve a balance between process and action – for example you move forward quickly on implementing some interventions for which you have confidence in achieving desired outcomes, while spending more time to assess and plan for other interventions for which you have more uncertainty.
Project Team
Conservation does not happen on its own. Individuals and groups of individuals are the engines behind any conservation project or program. The most important resources for any conservation project are the people who will be involved in designing and implementing it. Their commitment and skills will influence how effective the project can be. As such, it is important to choose your project team members carefully.
Defining the initial project team is a step that some organizations overlook or do not consider carefully. For example, organizations often hire project personnel as a project develops, rather than from the outset. They determine what skills are needed and the necessity of going outside the team to obtain those skills versus identifying and/or building the skills within the team. In some cases, tight budgets or poor management may mean that one person or a small group of people is hired and then charged with the daunting task of coordinating the project, as well as doing much of the technical work for the project.
Despite these realities, it is important to give careful consideration to your project team composition and, where possible, push your organization to recognize the importance of this step. Project team members should include representatives from the implementing organization, but they should not necessarily be confined to the organization. There may be individuals from other organizations, interest groups, or communities who should be part of the team. Being outside of the organization might mean these individuals play a different role on the team, but they may still be key to the implementation of your project. Your team will likely evolve over time, but typical configurations include:
- Initial Project Team – The specific people who initially conceive of and initiate a project. They may or may not go on to form the core project team.
- Core Project Team – A small group of people (typically 3-8 people) who are ultimately responsible for designing and managing a project. Often, there is much, if not complete, overlap with the initial project team.
- Full Project Team – The complete group of people involved in designing, implementing, monitoring, and learning from a project. This group can include different types of advisors, including managers and researchers, as well as stakeholders. You need a wide range of skills on your project team.
Standard roles for team members include:
- Project Leader/Manager – Although leadership responsibilities are often shared between team members, one individual is usually appointed as the overall project leader. Specific roles that a leader often plays include managing the performance of other team members, relations with key stakeholders, and the process of going through the project cycle.
- Team Contact – This might be the same person as the leader or manager, or it may be an individual with administrative or communications functions who coordinates with the broader team and those outside of the team.
- Project Advisors – People who are not on the project team, but to whom the team members can turn for honest feedback and counsel and who can champion your cause.
- Project Stakeholders – Individuals, groups, or institutions who have a vested interest in the natural resources of the project area and/or who potentially will be affected by project activities and have something to gain or lose if conditions change or stay the same. Just because someone is a stakeholder does not mean that you will want them on your project team. But if they are a key stakeholder, you also cannot ignore them in your analyses of the situation. Cultivation of relationships with key stakeholders can be a long process itself that may have to begin well before your project gets underway.
- Process Facilitator – A person who can help the project team through the planning process. A process facilitator is typically part of the initial and/or the core team. A good facilitator understands the key elements of the process, has good facilitation skills, and can keep your team from getting too bogged down in any one part of the process. This person does not need to be a “professional” facilitator, but should be someone who is intimately familiar with applying the process and tools to “real-world” conservation problems.
As shown in Figure 1, you can think of these different team configurations and roles as a series of concentric circles, with those in the center typically being the most involved and taking on the most responsibility. There is no strict recipe, however, and each team will likely vary somewhat. Some roles, such as the leader and core project team members, are important for all projects. You will need to take into account the project scale, complexity, and existing skills within your organization before deciding whom to involve in the team. For example, you may need to involve “outside” expertise such as consultants or academic institutions. In addition, it may be important to involve key partners with whom you may expect to collaborate in the future. This can help you to build ownership or buy-in for the project. It is worth taking into account that such partners (especially external partners) may have different priority issues in mind and you may need to take extra time to assess the situation and plan the project with them. As with many steps in the planning phase, there is no right decision regarding whom to include in your project team, but the decisions that you make will ultimately affect your project.
How To
You should define your initial project team at the start of the project. This team should then quickly identify the core and/or full project teams. The composition of the project team may change as you move through the management cycle, although it is usually helpful to maintain continuity of some key members. The following steps are described sequentially, but in practice they are interdependent and are often developed in parallel or iteratively.
Appoint a leader and the initial team and sketch out the project
Bring together the people who are charged with initiating the project. Have the team quickly sketch out the purpose and scope (broad geographic or thematic parameters) of the project and generally what you are interested in conserving, how you think you might do that, and who are likely to be your key stakeholders. You should also keep in mind your timeline and the required and available resources. As you finalize your strategic plan and develop your work plan, you will address these matters in greater detail. For now, you just need to have a rough sketch of your project to give you an idea of what skills your project team needs and which individuals and organizations might need to be on the project team.
Select project team members
Based on this initial analysis, think about who would be good to have on your core project team, who might be good as an advisor, and who you should avoid having directly involved in your project. As mentioned earlier, the composition of the project team may change as you move through the management cycle. Ideally, you want your team to have a mix of different knowledge, skills, and experience that include:
- Knowledge of biodiversity and threats to the biodiversity, including climate change
- Knowledge of and experience with the political, social, and economic context
- Knowledge of and experience with stakeholders and their concerns
- Skills and experience in developing strategies
- Skills and experience in implementing strategies
- Skills and experience in project monitoring and evaluation
- Skills and experience in communications and fundraising
- Skills and experience in budgeting and risk assessment
You should try to make sure that all the key skills you need are covered. If after reviewing your list of team members there are any gaps, you can note them and work to fill them if possible as your team moves forward (see Table 1).
Define roles and team operations
Once you have identified some of the key people involved in the core team, draw up a rough position description for each person that spells out what they are expected to contribute to the team and what they can expect to get in return. For example, will it be a paid position? How many hours or what percentage of their time are they expected to dedicate to the project? Will they get credit in any scientific publications? If multiple organizations are involved in the project, it may also be useful to develop a formal memorandum of understanding among the partners. Eventually, you will need to develop more formal terms of reference.
You may also need to decide how your team will operate. Team operations will include everything from how you will communicate and how often you will meet to how you will make decisions.
Get institutional buy-in or approval before moving forward
Hopefully, you are doing all the steps in the Conservation Standards with your project team. This is critical to ensuring your team’s buy-in to the process and the plan that you will design. It is also important to get buy-in at higher levels as well. Your team may be convinced it has the best project to address a particular threat, but if no one else in your office or higher level offices agrees, the project is unlikely to progress. It is particularly important to get this buy-in early on to help guarantee that the time and resources you spend on planning your project will not go to waste.
Exercise
- Identify the purpose, decision makers, and decisions that this work will support
- Select initial project team, including project leader, core members, and advisory members
- Identify existing skills among the initial team members and key gaps you should fill
- Designate roles and responsibilities and define how the initial project team will operate
- Briefly reflect on the process of identifying your project purpose and team and any potentially challenges you see going forward