Project Design

Project design is an important early phase that involves planning key aspects of a project like its structure, goals, deliverables, budget, and timeline. It establishes responsibilities and governance and considers stakeholder needs. Developing a strong design helps project managers avoid issues and maintain important aspects. Stakeholders then choose the best design to execute the project successfully.

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Project Design

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Princess De Juan

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Project Design

 Project design is a major first step towards a successful project.

 A project design is a strategic organization of ideas, materials and processes for
the purpose of achieving a goal.
 Project managers rely on a good design to avoid pitfalls and provide parameters
to maintain crucial aspects of the project, like the schedule and the budget.
 Project design is one of the first responsibilities of the project manager for a
given project.
 In this stage of the project, the decisions about how to manage and govern are
made.
 The project design includes everything from who is responsible for completing
the project to a description of the project, its goals, outcomes and objectives.
 It describes when these goals, outcomes and objectives will be reached, and the
major deliverables, products or features that will be completed.
 The project design also estimates the budget and outlines how to monitor and
evaluate progress.
 There can be more than one design presented to stakeholders, who can then
choose which they think best suits their needs.

 Project design is an early phase of the project where a project's key features,
structure, criteria for success, and major deliverables are all planned out.
 The point is to develop one or more designs which can be used to achieve the
desired project goals.
 Stakeholders can then choose the best design to use for the actual execution of
the project.
 The project design phase might generate a variety of different outputs, including
sketches, flowcharts, site trees, HTML screen designs, prototypes, photo
impressions and more.

 ‘Programme and Project Design’ is an integral part of the ‘project/programme

cycle’, which depicts the management of an intervention through a sequence of
inter- related phases.
 Programmes are never one size fits all, but an individual response to objective
problems. The key to a successful programme is the design according to local
needs and capacities, provision of added value for several stakeholders and
effective approaches to the most important regional factors and barriers.
Advantages
 The more people are willing to invest in designing a project, the lower the risk of
compromising its quality when implementation comes. Therefore, it is best to
allocate a considerable amount to the design stage, which can facilitate and
improve the quality of analysis and identification of real needs.
 A well-designed project will improve its accountability, resources management,
reliability and overall sustainability
 The better the project design is, the better the project proposal and thus chances
to receive funding for project implementation.

Disadvantages
 Designing a project requires an upfront investment
 Project objectives can become too complex and ambitious. They place heavy
demands on implementing entities that have limited capacities.
 Poorly formulated objectives and causal links between inputs, outputs, and
outcomes set up targets that are impossible to achieve.

According to THOMET and VOZZA (2010) the design phase can be divided into four
succeeding steps. Following these steps will help to design a good, simple and
feasible programme, which can then be manifested in form of a proposal.
 Step 1) Programme Identification: Identification is a participatory consultative
process that analyses the overall situation and specifically the problem.
 Every programme and project starts with a situation analysis. The purpose of
such an analysis is to identify the needs, interests, priorities and resources of the
Stakeholder Identification that will affect and may be affected by the project, and
to assess the different possibilities for improving the situation. The scope of
background studies depends on the complexity of the issues being addressed,
and the availability of information (THOMET and VOZZA 2010).

 Step 2) Programme Formulation: Based on the situation analysis, the formulation

of the programme should establish concrete goals and objectives to achieve and
outline the actions to be taken and the resources needed.
 The formulation step is based on the understanding gained during the situation
analysis and aims at formulating the best possible operational way to deal with
the core problem affecting the target group (THOMET and VOZZA 2010).
 The Logical Framework Approach has proved to be the most useful and effective
tool with which to formulate the project and structure a project proposal
(HARVEY et al 2002). The outputs of stakeholder, problem, objective and
alternative analyses are the core ingredients of the programme frame, called the
logical framework matrix (or logframe). Once completed, it will show, in a clear
and organised manner, what must be achieved, how it will be achieved, with
what resources, and in which timeframe (implementation planning). This series of
operations, if successfully carried out, will lead to the desired situation (THOMET
and VOZZA 2010).

 Step 3) Implementation Planning and Budgeting: An implementation plan will be

formulated based on the Logical Framework Approach in order to have both a
results-based work plan and a budget.
 The project design requires an implementation or work plan for the activities
listed in the logical framework. The work plan demonstrates that the project is
feasible in terms of responsibilities, schedule and resources. The work plan is a
key component of a Project Proposal Writing. It is the basis for monitoring the
operations of the project (OECD n.y.).

 Step 4) Planning of Monitoring and Evaluation: A Participatory Monitoring and

Evaluation will be planned and budgeted.
 The planning process should extend beyond looking at activities, results and
Using Indicactors to Measure Progress and Performance. It should include a plan
and mechanisms for Project Management, Participatory Monitoring and
Evaluation (UNDP 2009). Effective and timely decision making requires
information from regular and planned monitoring and evaluation activities.
Basically, monitoring and evaluation is about comparing what was originally
planned with what actually happens. It tracks progress at each level of the logical
framework: activities, outputs, outcomes and impacts (objectives). Planning for
monitoring and evaluation must therefore start at the time of programme or
project design, and they must be planned together (OECD n.y.).