Participant’s Manual

Project Management

Project Management
How to Plan, Action and Evaluate Projects
Version 2015-08-14

JCI Recommended Course

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 Project Management
JCI Vision Course Summary

To be the leading global network of young active Project Management is designed for JCI members who
citizens. want to expand their capabilities in running effective
projects.

JCI Mission This course follows the steps of the JCI Active Citizen
Framework to help you plan, deliver and evaluate the
To provide development opportunities that empower impact of projects. It aims to teach members how to use
young people to create positive change. tools that help manage their projects to a successful
result.
About JCI
During the course, you follow an example project
JCI is a membership-based nonprofit organization of through the various stages of project management to
young active citizens ages 18 to 40 in more than 120 experience the process first hand.
countries who are dedicated to creating positive change
in their communities. Each JCI member shares the belief Criteria to run this skills development session
that in order to create lasting positive change, we must
improve ourselves and the world around us. JCI • Be an active JCI member for at least six months or
members take ownership of their communities by past member still contributing to the Local
identifying problems and creating targeted solutions to Organization.
create impact. • Have graduated from this course, JCI Achieve and
JCI Impact.

© Copyright by JCI: All rights reserved.

This publication is for the exclusive use of the trainers

conducting the JCI Recommended Course and can only
be reproduced for this purpose. All JCI Recommended
Courses must be organized online and all participants
must individually register online to qualify for the manual
and to be certified as graduated from the course.

This publication or parts of it may not be translated in

any other language without the expressed permission
from the JCI Secretary General.

Published by:

JCI (Junior Chamber International), Inc.

15645 Olive Boulevard – Chesterfield, MO 63017, USA
Tel: +1-636-449-3100 – Fax: +1-636-449-3107
Email: [email protected] - Website: www.jci.cc

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 Project Management

Introduction What is a project?

JCI is an organization that was founded and continues to A project is the result of an intervention or action to
exist due to its members’ commitment to creating impact change the current situation to an ideal future situation,
locally and globally. This impact is created by the with a specific start and finish date and allocation of
innovative projects developed by JCI members. resources.
th
We are no longer living in the 20 century. This century We need projects to:
presents new challenges. Poverty, hunger, economic • Clarify objectives
crisis, deteriorating environment, youth unemployment, • Define activities
corruption and inequality. These are today’s challenges. • Leverage and distribute resources
These are the issues that society presents. • Delegate responsibilities
• Communicate actions
We recognize that the challenges of today require • Create impact!
collaborative solutions that involve all sectors of society:
government, business and civil society.

Sustainable impact is achieved through collective action

What is Project Management?
of active citizens across local communities. Designed to
Project management is the process and activity of
address all types of community issues, JCI members are
planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling
guided by the JCI Active Citizen Framework, which
resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific
provides a methodology for conducting impactful
goals.
projects.
We need project manage to ensure:
The process consists of assessing community needs,
• Effective use of time
formulating sustainable solutions and evaluating results
• Optimize resource usage
to ensure sustainability. Community partners, business
• Avoid improvisation
owners and government officials are engaged
• Reduce uncertainty
throughout each step of the process. The collaborative
• Reduce wasted effort / overlapping
ownership of challenges and solutions by all community
• Achieving your goals
stakeholders is what produces sustainable impact.

This course aims to expand your capability to run

effective projects to tackle these problems and create What is Project Management in JCI?
positive and sustainable impact throughout the world.
It is the process of discovering a community need
through a needs analysis, developing a project plan to
address the need, engaging partners and controlling
resources to achieve sustainable impact.

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Executing
JCI Active Citizen Framework In this stage the project teamwork through all of the
tasks required to run the project and start to deliver
JCI Impact
Training
JCI Active Citizen Framework results.
to Create a Better World

Monitoring and Controlling

Desired results achieved
and problem eliminated
Plan and action must be refined
to acheive desired results

Analyze
Here we monitor the results of the project to check if the
Desired results achieved
but more action needed
Community to elimintate problem
Evaluate and
Needs
project is on track to achieve the set objective for the
Report

project.
Health and
Wellness
ACTION
Formulat

Closing
ea
nd

This is a monitoring stage where we see if the project

Pla

Partnerships
ts

Education and
n

ul

us es
S

ta Economic
ina eR
ur
has achieved its objectives.
ble Empowerment s
Solu
tion Mea

Peace,
Prosperity and

Not all projects will have every stage. Some projects will
Sustainability

be terminated before their conclusion and some will

JCI Mission: To provide development opportunities that
empower young people to create positive change.
repeat the planning and design, executing and
monitoring and controlling steps until the project is
running effectively.
In JCI Impact, you learn about the JCI Active Citizen
Framework and how it is used to create and run projects
within JCI.

Planning using simple questions

These are some questions which you can work through
to help ensure that you plan your project effectively.

Why are we running this project?

Discuss the root cause of the need.

What do we want to do?

Discuss the concept of your project and a project name.

What do we want to achieve?

Discuss the objectives of the project.

When will the project start and finish?

The JCI Active Citizen Framework is based on a Discuss how long the project will take to manage and the
traditional phased Project Management approach. length needed to achieve results.

Initiation
The needs analysis stage is where we want to “The key to creativity is to begin with
understand why a project is needed by identifying the
root cause of the community need. the end in mind, with a vision and a
blue print of the desired result.”
Planning and Design Stephen Covey
This is where we work through the planning and design
of a project. We can use a number of tools to create
effective goals and objectives, then identify all of the
tasks which must be completed to achieve a positive
result.
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Objective Setting Gantt Chart

SMART is a guide to effectively setting objectives to
achieve a desired goal.

Specific
Make your objectives very clear and specific. It’s easier
to measure your results at the end of the project if you
have specific goals.

Measurable
Where possible, use amounts, percentages, timescales,
etc., in your objectives. This will help you check the
success of the project during and after it is completed.

Achievable A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart, first developed by

While it is important to encourage creativity, it’s also a Karol Adamiecki in 1896, and independently by Henry
good idea to ensure that your objectives are realistic and Gantt in the 1910s, illustrating a project schedule. This
can be achieved so that you can complete and measure chart is commonly used now and there are many
the objectives. different software tools out there, however, you can use
paper or a spreadsheet if you prefer.
Relevant
Any objectives you set must be in line with the aim of A Gantt chart illustrates the planned start and finish
your project and aid the delivery of the project. Irrelevant dates of each task within a project. On the left hand side,
objectives can distract members of the team and waste you’ll see the tasks that need to be completed and at the
time. top, you’ll see the timescale for the project.

Time-bound Each bar is completed to illustrate when a specific task

Try to be specific about when objectives should be needs to be completed and how long it will take. You can
completed. This will help drive the project forward and use different colors to indicate who, within the team, will
ensure that it’s completed by the date you have set as be doing a specific task.
the completion goal.
If a task is dependent on another task being completed
first, then you can indicate this on the chart by showing a
Brainstorming dependency (an arrow from one task to another).
This is a tool you can use to gather a large number of You should agree on some key milestones throughout
ideas in a short period of time. In the course, we use a your project. These are points where key activities must
method where each member of the team individually have been completed. These should also be shown on
writes down all of the different tasks they believe need to the graph (on the example above they are shown as
be done to execute the project. yellow triangles).
This allows each person space and time to think through Once complete, the graph should be used in all progress
the process before joining back together as a team. meetings to ensure that everyone is working according
to plan and meeting the key deadlines required to
When all of the individual ideas are combined, it can complete the project on time.
help bond the team in understanding every stage of the
execution that is required and also allows quieter
members of the group to participate.

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What is a Stakeholder? Use relevant partners through the lifecycle of your

project. You may find that you need different partners to
Stakeholders are people or groups that have or claim be involved at different times of the project. Make sure
ownership, rights or interests in a project and its results you bring them into the project when they are needed.
during the past, present or future.

Working with Partners Resources

We work with partners to: It can be helpful at the start of a project to plan the
• Bring different knowledge and resources to a resources you will need during the project. It can also
project. help to focus the team on what they will need during
• Collaborate to increase the projects impact and each task on the Gantt chart.
make it sustainable.
• Work with them at different stages of your Things to consider:
project. • List the resources required for the project
• List the resources you already have
When you pick a partner, it’s important to ensure that • List the resources you need to obtain
you: • Plan requirements for each task
• Monitor throughout the project
Have common goals and values • Communicate regularly with the team
The desired objectives of the JCI Mission must match
the objectives of your partner. A good example is JCI’s
partnership with the United Nations. Our goals and Budget
values are very similar, so we are able to support and
work together well for mutual benefits. It’s very important to prepare a budget for each project
so you understand what impact the project will have on
Avoid conflicts of interests your organization. The result of each project will depend
As you would in a work situation, it’s important to on its purpose. Some will break even and some will
acknowledge and discuss any conflicts of interest you make a surplus. Some may also be aimed at maximizing
discover. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we cannot income for a charity partner. Planning, monitoring and
work with that partner, but it can make things more adjusting your budget as required is essential to achieve
challenging, so it’s important to be clear about how you success on your project.
will deal with the conflict to all parties involved.
Things to consider:
When working with partners it’s good practice to: • Plan a complete budget for your project
• Monitor the actual budget against your
Ensure clear roles and responsibilities are agreed at estimated budget
the start of a project. This allows everyone to • Review progress and highlight any challenges to
understand what they can expect from each other and stakeholders
can be reviewed and monitored. • Adjust the budget if needed
• Analyze results
Clarify the benefit to your partners of being involved
in the project so that it’s easier to persuade them to get
involved. Most organizations will want to achieve
something out of the relationship with us, so your
partnership will be more effective if you acknowledge
this and monitor the benefit they receive.

Have active communication with your partner. If you

don’t tell your partner what’s happening, they may
assume nothing is happening, so keep in contact and
give them updates, letting them know what you need
from them.
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 Project Management

Risks Evaluating Your Project

This is an aspect of project management that is At the end of your project it’s important to look back and
extremely important and is yet often missed. It’s evaluate how successful it was.
important to ensure that you identify, monitor and react
to risks throughout your project in order to reduce any We evaluate the project results to measure:
negative impacts on JCI. 1. If the objectives were achieved
2. Impact and sustainability
For example, you should consider if your project will 3. To improve future projects
need to have public liability insurance in case any
participant or member is injured or cancellation We suggest that you look at:
insurance in case there’s the possibility of weather
conditions cancelling your event. Effectiveness Did we make an impact?

By working through the risks in a project you may end up Relevance Did we make the right impact?
looking into alternative options to make your project
more successful. Efficiency Did we make good use of our time?

Things to consider: Coordination Did the team work well?

• Take a balanced view based on probability and
impact of the risk. If the risk is likely to happen, Coherence Was the project understood?
then you should create a solution. If the risk is
very unlikely to happen, you may just Coverage How many people did we impact?
acknowledge it and monitor without making any
changes.
• Ensure all high impact risks are addressed and Evaluating involves the same skills as the monitoring
controlled. you did during the project, however you are now looking
• Monitor the risks and notify stakeholders when at the overall success of the project against the
any risks are realized. objectives set.

It’s a good idea to involve impartial people in the

Monitoring Your Project evaluation of your project, as it will help to get objective
results. For example, involving a past member/senator,
We monitor projects to ensure that they are on track to mentor or someone from a partnership to help look over
achieve our objectives and goals. the results and make recommendations for future
initiatives.
There are a number of things that monitoring does:
• Highlight unexpected results The results are required by all of the different
• Provide information for decision making stakeholders that you considered at the start of your
• Identify problems or unmet needs project. Make sure you provide feedback on the results
• Highlight issues of sustainability, cost to help them understand the impact they have been
effectiveness or relevance involved in creating. This can help to ensure that
• Identify ways to improve performance members get involved in future projects and partners are
likely to stay supportive.
It is important to set regular review meetings with your
team and with your partners to go through current
progress on the project and check if any decisions need
to be made.

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Impact!
By following the JCI Active Citizen Framework we hope
you can achieve positive and sustainable impact in your
community.

By doing this you will create a positive impact on the

skills and confidence of your members. This should help
them to feel more empowered to run projects in the
future and expand the impact of your local and national
organization.

Project Gallery
Please take a look at the JCI Project Gallery on the JCI
website: www.jci.cc/projects

This can give you ideas on projects that you could run in
your Local or National Organization.

Please also use your evaluation information to upload

your projects to the gallery. You can help provide other
members around the world with inspiration on how to
create more positive impact around the world.

Thank you
We hope you enjoyed this course and found it useful. If
you have any feedback on the course please let us know
at [email protected]. We will monitor the feedback to
update and improve the course as needed.

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 JCI Vision

To be the leading global network of young active citizens.

JCI Mission

To provide development opportunities that empower young people to create positive change.

About JCI

JCI is a membership-based nonprofit organization of young active citizens ages 18 to 40 in more than 100
countries who are dedicated to creating positive change in their communities. Each JCI member shares the belief
that in order to create lasting positive change, we must improve ourselves and the world around us. JCI members
take ownership of their communities by identifying problems and creating targeted solutions to create impact.