Detailed planning and milestones

How does the Project Steering Group work?

E-teams (IIIC East)

In the E-teams project, the Inter-regional Steering Group (ISG) is the decision making body for activities carried out in the project and consists of the chairperson, the project coordinator, the financial manager and representatives of the 10 partner institutions. It usually meets every 6 months. Extracts from the document defining the structure and rules for this group are quoted below.

Decision making

3. Decision making is based on consensus and in case an agreement cannot be reached, decisions are made by a majority of votes in the ISG.

4. The method of voting is decided by ISG Chairman.

5. When voting, agreement upon a decision is reached on condition that it is supported by more than 50% of the ISG Members present.

(…)

Meetings

8. ISG Meetings are organised in different participating regions according to a specific scheme described in the Application Form.

9. Exact dates of the scheduled ISG Meetings will be discussed with ISG Members and set by the ISG chairperson at least 1 month prior to the event.

10. In duly justified cases the ISG may meet at Extraordinary Meetings on request (…)

14. If necessary every ISG Member may invite observers to join the ISG Meeting. Such invitations must be approved by the chairperson.

15. Observers may take part in every session and discussion during the ISG Meetings, unless one or more of ISG Members objects.

16. Observers do not vote during ISG Meetings.

DOCUMENT LINK!

The full text can be found in the original document with the E-Teams international steering group rules in the Annex.

In smaller partnership projects there is often no need for a separate Steering Group. The success of smaller projects very much depends on the close interaction and regular (more informal) communication between the various partners to ensure joint implementation.

Partners are directly involved in the decision-making processes and participate in partnership meetings.

4.5 Detailed planning and milestones

Effective coordination and management rely on well-coordinated and realistic project planning. Initial project planning takes place at the pre-application stage but needs to be developed further after approval in order to create a detailed work plan for the project. This is necessary for a number of reasons:

1. The project approval and Grant Offer Letter/ Subsidy Contract from the programme can be issued later than anticipated, so that the project starts later than originally planned.

The time line for delivering the project needs to be adapted then according to the new starting date

4. Contracting and start-up

2. The project can receive a ‘conditional approval’. That means that changes need to be made to the original outline of the project content, timing and resource allocation in order to meet the conditions required by the programme

3. The pre-application project plan needs to be further refined in order to develop a more detailed work plan for the first phase of project implementation. This is the time to assign tasks to named staff and se4t exact start and end times

Detailed planning should also show the order of what happens when and what tasks need to be completed before the next set of tasks can start (Critical Path Analysis can be used here and details can be found in most general project management literature).

Depending on the type and the scale of the project, detailed planning mostly covers only the first period of the implementation phase, such as the first 6 months or the first year (this decision depends very much on the frequency of later planning meetings). This is because a good level of detail can only be worked out on short-term basis: In order to prepare later work plans, outcomes of the previous stage need to be reviewed to see if the initial set of work packages has delivered the intended outputs / results.

The definition of milestones (the most important interim results/outputs at certain dates) throughout the work plan improves project monitoring and review and is also important for partners to see that progress is being achieved and to maintain the team spirit. Milestones are important interim outputs, that have to be achieved in order for the project to move on or be completed, such as the development of a methodology, website, etc. for example. Milestones are often the end of a work package. Keeping to the deadlines for the milestones is important in order to stay within the overall project timetable. If a milestone is not achieved as scheduled, the work plan needs to be revised to bring the project back on track.

In short, detailed project planning is important for a number of reasons:

Confirmation of each partner’s role in the project activities (usually pre-defined in application form and/or in partnership agreements)

More detailed outline of the necessary resources (time, staff, budget) for achieving outcomes

Identification of timeframes and deadlines

Identification of project outputs that mark the critical path of the project (milestones) Definition of the workflow, i.e. the sequence or order of tasks and relationships between tasks

Building a baseline for project review, evaluation, reporting and early identification of risks as well as day-to-day project management

One way of presenting a work plan in a very transparent way is by using Gantt charts. Such charts allow project managers to break the work packages, tasks and sub-tasks over a timeline and include milestones (a much more detailed version of the Gantt chart than those often included in project applications). The example below shows a detailed work plan for one part of a work package for dissemination. The main tasks are the e-newsletter, brochure and launch event, each with a number of sub-tasks and actions listed underneath as well as milestones set for the completion of each sub-task. Staff and time are allocated per action with the partner organisations responsible for each task and sub-task.

Project Management Handbook

GANTT Chart

DOCUMENT LINK!

A blank template for a GANTT chart is included in the Annex.

How to create the plan?

1. List all tasks, sub-tasks and activities

Start with the work package break down used for the application and divide each task and sub-task further down into a number of concrete activities that have to take place.

2. Identify resources

Allocate names of the persons (not just partner institutions) to do the work next to each sub-task or activity. These can be team members or sub-contractors.

3. Highlight relationships

Show dependencies between tasks (not necessarily activities). This is especially important when working with larger partnerships where work has to be coordinated between partners. It helps to show, for example, when the interim outputs of one stage are handed over to the next person to complete activities and tasks.

4. Work out the real time frame

Define the time required for each activity and the start and end-date. The original outline of work packages should give a good indication for this but needs to be broken down further.

Make sure you calculate with the real time of when the activities will be completed. If the person assigned to the task only works 50% on the project throughout the time the activity takes place, a 5-day activity may take 10 days.

4. Contracting and start-up

Include time-lags where relevant, for example time between the selection of a tenderer and their actual start of working on the project.

Add limited time for delays. Some things will not go as planned but keep safety margins small to emphasise that partners must try to keep all deadlines.

5. Identify milestones

Milestones are significant points in the path of the project that have to be achieved for the project to succeed (core outputs) or before the project can proceed. They can also be linked to reporting deadlines. They have to be quantifiable and meaningful so that the project manager can see whether they are achieved or not (there are no half-completed milestones).

The number of milestones for a project varies according to the duration of the project, number of partners involved and number/duration of work packages. Partners should work out a reasonable number of milestones together (if you have too many, they become meaningless if you have too few, you can’t keep track of progress in between).

Tip: Establish core milestone for the project related to the main project phases already in place at the application stage. These can be further broken down during operational planning for implementation.