The Case for Project Proposals

One practice I am trying to make a habit this year is to put together a project proposal for almost any action or process I do at work. I also encourage everyone I work with to do the same. I am finding that this is an essential activity that clarifies:

• Why the action or process is being created or instituted.

• What is actually going to happen.

• How it will unfold.  

• When it will unfold.

• What metrics will determine success.

For me and all the other stakeholders of the project. In an ideal world, each proposal is written during a working session with all the stakeholders. However, I find that it still works great as an asynchronous tool – as long as the people you are working with are good at carefully reading and thoughtfully commenting on shared documents.

Great! How do I do it?

Credit for the content this proposal structure goes to the Aga Khan Education Board Canada, who shares this practice in their evaluation trainings.

Proposals do not have to be long – aim for about a page. Here are the three sections you should include:

Section 1: Introduction / Background

This section can have up to three subheadings which include:

·       Overview: Where you provide context around what motivated this proposal. Here is where you should mention what is creating the problem or issue you are trying to address and why.

·       Objective: Where you describe how you want to address the problem or issue. Essentially you are stating your goals / what you are trying to achieve.

·       Target Audience: I do not always include this, but it is a helpful way to call out if you are creating something that multiple audiences may interact with (i.e. primary and secondary stakeholders).

Section 2: Program Approach

Here you will outline (in bullet points) the different steps of the project as well as the timelines. Here’s a sample of some things that would be included in the approach:

·       [Week 1 – by 2/7] Perform a lit review on subject and compile into summary document.

·       [Week 2 – by 2/14] Share document with stakeholders and finalize which data is important to collect.

·       [Week 3 – by 2/21] Work with data team to determine data collection and maintenance.

·       [Week 4 – by 2/28] Launch form with beta testers and identify any issues.

·       [Week 5 onwards – starting 3/1] Monitor engagement of the form.

As you can see, this is pretty much a high-level to-do list, although it varies depending on the complexity of the project.

Section 3: Evaluation

This section outlines, at a very high level, what you determine to be your metrics of success. Keep in mind, those metrics can change as the process stabilize or as priorities shift, but you want to pick the most important ones for right now. For example, if you have just launches a website, you would want to monitor unique visitors and returning visitors – not the number of positive comments about the logo.

And that’s it! As you can see, once you sit down and do it, it’s relatively painless and can save a lot of miscommunication and disorganization in the long run. I promise!
Try it out and let me know what you think!