3. ACTIVITY PLANNING

Summary: Focuses on the comprehensive management of project activities, covering aspects such as communication, time, budget, risk, and volunteer management, to ensure effective project execution and stakeholder satisfaction.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the multifaceted nature of project management, encompassing various aspects such as communication, time, budget, risk, and volunteer management.
2. Learn strategies for effective management to ensure project success and stakeholder satisfaction.

Planning and management of activities go hand by hand. Successfully planned activities cannot be undertaken with a weak management structure and vice versa (Groenendijk & Dopheide, 2003). Therefore, management is an essential part of any proposal.

For a proper management structure, you need to make sure that your partners and stakeholders will be involved and included equally. Therefore, creation of a top management structure is advisable. This top management should be consist of representatives of organizations in the consortium who can directly take a decision regarding the Project. This approach would eliminate any internal bureaucracy among the consortium. This top management structure should convene regularly. These meetings should be reported and minutes should be archived and distributed to Project staff. This will ensure that any decision is agreed on, documented and should be followed up.

Top management will be responsible of general administration of the Project. Any deviation, problems, risks, important issues will be discussed, examined and decided. However, there will be also a need for management structure for the Workpackage and specific actions. Therefore, Project teams should be created to undertake specific activity and actions. Workers and appointed personnels in the Project will be natural members of these teams. These teams will have meetings and communication among themselves more often than the top management. Each team can have a local leader and international team will have a general coordinator/leader. This coordinator/leader can be Workpackage leaders as well.

Summary: Highlights the importance of effective communication and collaboration within project teams and with stakeholders, emphasizing strategies for fostering productive interactions and resolving conflicts to achieve project objectives.

Learning Objectives:

1. Develop skills in managing communication and collaboration within project teams and with stakeholders to facilitate smooth project execution.
2. Learn techniques for fostering effective communication channels and resolving conflicts to maintain productive collaboration.

Communication among partners and different stakeholders are important. A well functioning communication leads to successful collaboration (Martin etal., 2016). Miscommunication and/or misunderstandings would hinder the Project progress and its potential. Due to miscommunication, Project activities can be implemented differently or incorrectly by each partner. This would lead quality and quantity drop in activities which will cause that the Project objectives are not met.

In order to ensure a good communication among partners and stakeholders, different medias, channels and frequency of use of these channels should be identified in the planning phase and incorporated into the proposal. Since quality and use of the digital channels are improved in recent years, most of the communication can be done virtually. One of the most important aspect that you need to do is documentation of each communication. Decisions and topics discussed should be documented and circulated to related persons, so everyone can be on the same page.

In the proposal, you can either categorize the meetings/communication by media or its objectives. If you want to make a categorization by media, you can split the communication in two main groups: virtual/online and physical/face-to-face. Then you can create sub-categories (such as written, verbal, video-conference for virtual/online communication).

It is possible to categorize the meetings/communication by objectives. Examples for this categorization are top management meetings, workpackage meetings, quality meetings, risk handling/management meetings, procurement meetings.

In either way, under each categorization you need to specify objectives, media/channels, frequency of use, participants, locations.

Summary: Discusses the efficient allocation and utilization of time and budget resources to ensure project milestones are met within established constraints, emphasizing prioritization and optimization strategies.

Learning Objectives:

1. Gain proficiency in managing time and budget resources efficiently to ensure project milestones are met within allocated resources.
2. Understand the importance of prioritization and resource allocation to optimize project outcomes.

Time and budget management is a crucial aspect of Project management (Jaselskis & Ashley, 1991). Rules and regulation regarding this management aspect should be also referred in your proposal. These rules and internal regulation should be decided unanimously among partners. When the Project is granted, these rules and other important topics should be turned into an agreement document and signed by each party.

It is advisible that you include a clause detailing frequency of financial installments. This means that you can make payments to your partners in line with the work completed. You can link your payments to completion of tasks or Workpackages. For example, you can make advance payment as %20 of the total budget allocated to partner at the start of the Project. You can make additional %20 payment (or more/less) when your Workpackage-2 is done, and so on. Grant programmes also don’t pay you all of the budget in one installment. In line with the programme rules, you can adjust your payment distribution. The main aim here is to ensure that the tasks are done in time and correctly, if not you can cut the payments or not to make any. So you can delegate tasks to other partner sor you can find new partners in case of a non-responsive partner by getting into contact and approval of your programme agency.

An important methodology to follow up the human resources in terms of work and budget is utilization of staff timesheet documents. You can track up the work of all staff employed in the Project by each organization. It is advisible that you collect these documents at the end of the each month. By this methodology, you can control and have a proof that the number of workers, days, hours allocated to an activity by your partners employing staff under different categories.

Since you will have meetings with your partners regularly, it is possible for you to justify your time and budget management in the proposal. You will naturally follow-up your activities in the Project via these meetings and correspondances among partners. These communication and collaboration efforts will provide you necessary information about the activities, so you and your consortium can analyze whether there is a deviation from Project time table and/or objectives. If there is a substantive deviation, you can identify the problem and take necessary measures to tackle it. So, you can start risk/issue/change/crisis management process.

Above is an example of a staff timesheet. As can be seen, the table includes the date, output, a brief description of the output-related activities, the category under which the employee works, and the number of days. This staff timesheet example has been prepared specifically for Erasmus+ cooperation partnerships. It is possible to revise the form for different projects. You can add different titles to the Employee category section and write differentiating the wages to be paid on the side. The coordinator/manager can control and manage how the related employee spends his/her time through this table. If there is any deviation from the targets, one of the most efficient ways to find the source is to follow these tables. In this way, it can be determined whether the deviation in the targets is caused by the personnel or for a different reason, and interventions can be made accordingly. At the same time, the stage of outputs and activities and the amount of human resources allocated to them can be followed through these charts. In case of a change in the human resources of the project, staff timesheets can be used to integrate new recruited people into the activity and related stages.

Staff timesheet documents are an important tool in terms of supervising, monitoring and tracking not only the coordinator's own employees, but also the employees and work of the project partners. Through staff timesheet documents, the coordinator can check the stage of the tasks given to other partners and whether the necessary resources have been spent on them, and can make their payments in line with this information (Brown, 2001).

Summary: Examines the proactive identification, analysis, and management of risks, issues, changes, and crises that may impact project outcomes, emphasizing the importance of resilience and adaptability in maintaining project progress.

Learning Objectives:

1. Develop skills in identifying, analyzing, and managing risks, issues, changes, and crises that may impact project delivery and outcomes.
2. Learn strategies for proactive risk mitigation and effective crisis management to minimize disruptions and maintain project progress.

It is impossible for anyone to foresee the future event completely correct. What you can do best is to analyze the events, activities, environment under certain assumptions. Some grant programmes ask you to state this assumptions and risks at the proposal phase. Some general assumption examples are stated below:

• Economic environment will be stable for procurement of goods and services that will be used in the Project.
• There will not be any bureaucratic and/or regulative change affecting the Project activities.
• Key personnels defined in the proposal will be available during the Project.
• Project partners will be able to continue their activities during the Project.

You can also include more specific assumptions related with your Project and activities. Since your Project proposal will be an integral part of the contract that you will sign with the Grant Provider / Agency, it is important to leave an open door to risks. In case of your assumptions are violated due to external causes (or force majeure), your Project activities may be at risk in terms of quality and/or quantity. In that case, you need to contact with your Grant provider / Agency and ask for a way out. In that case, you can state that one or more of your assumptions are failed and there can be reduction quality and/or quality of your outputs and activities.

Even though some risks cannot be foreseen, some can be dealt with throughout the Project processes. In order to deal with these risks, a risk, issue or change process should be defined. You can define certain categories to group risks, issues or changes. It can be easier to manage these categories if you delegate responsibilities in line with the significance level. So, if an issue can be resolved at local level, you or your partner tackle with the issue and inform consortium about it. If this issue cannot be resolved solely by one partner, consortium would be informed and tries to find a way out. If, It cannot be resolved by this level either, you can contact with the Grant provider / Agency to ask guidance and an escalation path.

Summary: Focuses on the principles and techniques of risk analysis in project planning and management, highlighting the importance of identifying, assessing, and prioritizing risks to develop effective risk management strategies.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the principles and techniques of risk analysis in project planning and management.
2. Learn how to identify, assess, and prioritize project risks to develop effective risk management strategies.

It is possible to find solutions by rating your risks. Measures to eliminate, prevent, reduce and mitigate the effects of external threats to the project are carried out with a good risk analysis (Borghesi & Gaudenzi, 2012).

Personnel responsible for risk assessment may refer to the table below for each risk they have identified.

On the other hand, the identified risks can also be tabulated on the basis of purpose, result and activity according to probability, impact and risk value:

In the table above, it is possible to rank the risks on the basis of purpose, result and activity. In calculating the risk value, the product of probability and effect value is taken into account. Probability and effect values are set from 1 to 5. In this case, the minimum value that the risk value will take is 1, while the maximum value is 25. The determination of probability and impact values depends on the person or people who analyze the risk. Risk value ranges can be determined according to the project methodology.

For example, 1-5 can be defined as very low, 6-10 low, 11-15 moderate, 16-20 high, 21-25 very high. Different processes can be carried out according to the degree of risk. These risks can also be decomposed according to solution levels. In this framework, the risks that can be solved at the local level can be eliminated by the team of the partner in the relevant country, if there is an international risk, the relevant partners can minimize it with their own measures, or if a risk that will completely affect the project is detected, the fund provider can be contacted and request support and/or revision.

Summary: Explores the significance of visibility, promotion, dissemination, and valorization activities in maximizing the impact and sustainability of project outcomes, emphasizing strategies for effective communication and stakeholder engagement.

Learning Objectives:

1. Recognize the importance of visibility, promotion, dissemination, and valorization activities in maximizing the impact and sustainability of project outcomes.
2. Learn strategies for effectively communicating project achievements and engaging stakeholders.

Visibility, promotion, dissemination, valorization activities are important for any Project to achieve its goals. Any Project has at least 1 target group and needs to get into contract with them at some point. Also, Project sustainability can be ensured via proper visibility, promotion, dissemination activities for certain stakeholders, policy makers, institutions and organizations.

It is important to develop visibility, promotion, dissemination and valorization strategies for the target group(s) you have determined in parallel with your stakeholder analysis, and/or for individuals and institutions that can reach these target groups. Impact levels should also be taken into account when developing these strategies. These individuals and institutions can be reached through activities at the local, regional, national or international levels. Different strategies can be developed in line with the objectives of the project, the size of its budget, and the potential impact on target groups.

If a proposal is being made for a project with a relatively large budget, tools that appeal to large audiences such as radio and television can be used. However, most grant programs provide relatively low levels of grant resources. In this case, activities and channels that will target the target audience in the most effective and efficient way should be used. Technological tools, digital platforms and social media, which are frequently used today and which can be used for dissemination and visibility in accordance with the audience profile, have an important place among these channels. These tools allow dissemination and visibility activities for free or at low cost. When the promotional budget is allocated for social media tools such as facebook, twitter, instagram, visibility can be provided directly according to the characteristics of the target audience. These budgets will remain quite low compared to the cost of using the mass media and will also allow direct access to the desired audience. In mass media, on the other hand, although the costs are high, access to the target audience may be limited. Therefore, it would be more logical to turn to niche areas for visibility.

It was mentioned that you can follow a strategy according to the impact levels in your project. The costs of traditional visibility and dissemination activities that you will carry out at the local level will remain at a lower level. Activities at this level can be focus meetings, institution visits, flash mob events, information activities to be held at schools, competitions for students and youth, interviews with the local press, press releases, and official letters to local institutions. Similarly, it is possible to carry out these activities at the regional level.

At national and international levels, as it was mentioned, dissemination, visibility and promotion activities due to traditional and mass media will be very costly, so social media and digital platforms, which are very effective at these levels, can be used. In this framework, it would be appropriate to include social media and digital memberships and channels in your project proposal.

It is also important to determine the frequency of use of the channels and tools you have chosen according to the levels you have determined and their place in the activity calendar. For these visibility, promotion and dissemination activities, you need to assign and define tasks not only to the coordinator but also to the project partners.

Summary: Discusses the importance of corporate identity in project branding and stakeholder engagement, emphasizing the establishment and maintenance of a consistent corporate identity to enhance project recognition and credibility.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the significance of corporate identity in project branding and stakeholder engagement.
2. Learn how to establish and maintain a consistent corporate identity to enhance project recognition and credibility.

In addition to the channels and tools you will use, the message you convey to your target audience is also important. Content creation and corporate identity are the factors that affect the effectiveness of the message you will convey. The point you need to pay attention to when creating content is not to include unnecessary and incorrect information. You can make necessary referrals by creating a web page with detailed and up-to-date information and by including this page in the messages and images you will send. Activities for realization of corporate identity, on the other hand, include activities aimed at ensuring the same dissemination order and thus increasing the memorability and impact. Creating the project logo, choosing the colors to be used in the images, standardizing the footer and header notes to be used in official correspondence, establishing a web page and obtaining e-mail address, and regularly sharing current content are among these works. Managing social media accounts, sharing properly, and responding quickly to incoming interactions and comments can also be counted among the factors that increase institutionalism. You can use brochures, posters, business cards, presentations, information notes, promotional materials (note papers with logo and web page, post-it, agenda, mug, etc.) in the message you send. While making use of printed materials, keeping them to a minimum and using recyclable/recycled materials will also be an important contribution to environmental sustainability.

Another important point to consider when creating your messages is the rules of the granting program and/or institution. These rules may sometimes restrict your dissemination and visibility activities. Apart from this, some programs (for example Erasmus+) also impose an obligation to include the waiver text in the texts and images. In addition, it may be obligatory to indicate the logo, visual and grant support of these programs, funding institutions and, if any, other organizations mentioned in the program guide. Some programs may have separate guidebooks for visibility and promotion. It is important for a successful project proposal to examine these during the project preparation phase and to state that they will be taken into account in the implementation.

Summary: Examines the value of volunteering in project implementation and community engagement, highlighting effective volunteer management strategies, including recruitment, training, and motivation, to maximize volunteer contributions to project success.

Learning Objectives:

1. Appreciate the value of volunteering in project implementation and community engagement.
2. Gain insights into effective volunteer management strategies, including recruitment, training, and motivation, to maximize volunteer contributions to project success.

Volunteering takes place in the form of active participation of the target groups and the 3rd parties in the project processes. Volunteers are a useful human resource, especially for nonprofits. Volunteers can take part in volunteering activities for reasons such as personal satisfaction, career, gaining experience, benefiting from abroad opportunities, necessity arising from the education curriculum and so on.

If your project is based on volunteerism or includes activities that involve the participation of volunteers, you should also describe how this process will be carried out. Volunteers should be seen as a temporary human resource and the duties, authorities and responsibilities to be assigned should be distributed to this extent. A person's voluntary service and work for an institution or project should not be seen as completely free of charge. Travel and food expenses of these people should be covered and, if possible, some pocket money should be given. For this reason, it is recommended to allocate daily in the project budget for volunteers.

In order for the volunteers to take part in the project, the necessary information must be announced. Digital portals used by project announcements and non-profit organizations can be used for these announcements. In addition, advertisements can be placed on social media groups. In the advertisements, it would be useful to mention your project, activities and work that will take place in the volunteer position, the place and duration of the volunteering, the contribution it will make to the participants (certificate, reference, etc.), and participation fees that will be provided to them, if any. Collecting the participants' information on a standard form and creating a database will be useful in the follow-up of the applications and the recruitment process of the volunteer.

Necessary training should be given to the volunteer about the job (s)he will do after the selection process. Therefore, if your project is going to be about volunteering, it is important that you specify the training to be given to these people. Volunteers will be able to use these trainings on their resumes, so stating these trainings in the advertisement can be used to attract volunteers.

In order for the volunteers to take the work process seriously, you can prepare and sign contracts. This will also increase job engagement. As a matter of fact, since the concept of volunteering is not fully understood in Balkan countries, Türkiye and some other countries, people who work voluntarily will think that they can leave their jobs whenever they want. In such case, your project activities will be interrupted. In order to prevent this, you need to generate incentives specific to your project and activity and increase the commitment of the volunteer. For example, if you need to find local, volunteer participants for a youth project that you will carry out in the country, it can be an important incentive to state that these volunteers will have priority in taking part in projects abroad.

It is also important to follow the activities of your volunteers. You can carry out this follow-up activities with the Project staff (not with the volunteers). Such an assignment would be ideal for controlling and monitoring volunteers and would allow unexpected events to be prevented early on.