Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Small Grants Management Challenges

The emergence of young leaders in project management has exposed some pertinent challenges in managing small grants projects. The execution of Our Chances with HIV Project' in Cameroon was a great experience on such challenges. We faced challenges like scope changes, adherence to HIV confidentiality policy and working with partners. Let me share an experience on scope changes.

GYCA announce the award of small grants for my project in January. That was quite timely since the project  was planned for January to June 2010 in consideration of the National Youth Week that runs from February 1st  -10th . Somehow, GYCA couldn’t provide the funds until mid February. We were caught between shifting the project timelines to wait for the funds and borrowing funds to respect the timelines. Mindful of the project’s attachment to the National Youth Week, We had to go for a micro-finance loan and partner with an institution that could facilitate the process. The risk with taking a loan to pre-finance a project is paying the interest and/or paying back if the funder changes her mind. This process also brought in a stakeholder that was not in the original plan.

Scope changes in project management have become a common project management challenge in recent years. This happens when there is a need to modify the agreed-upon project scope as defined. Scope changes often require adjustments to cost, time, quality, risk or other project deliverables. ‘These changes must be put back through the planning process, updating plans as needed and notifying stakeholders as deemed appropriate ‘said Sally Stanleigh, BIA associate. Corrective action is needed to bring expected future project performance into line with the project plan.

The term”Scope Change” refers to anything that will now be different to what had originally been agreed-upon in the original Project Scope Statement and subsequently the Project Plan.

4 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Numfor, great slogans! I really like what you have developed. These messages are catchy, fun and also convey compassion and promote human rights in an accessible way. This is a strategic way to challenge cultural and social norms about promiscuity and sex. Great work!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great work!!! I really like your sense of commitment towards HIV and AIDS specifically withregards to YPLHIV leadership and meaningful involvement....Please do let me know if you might need any networking opportunities with PLHIV in Cameroon as i might be able to hoke you up with people that might be able to help you at some point with you advocacy plan.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wooo, your messages are really really impressive. I love this "HIV knows no God or Good". In fact, in Vietnam, when thinking about HIV, people often related HIV to the bad, the evils. They forget that there are many innocent children and good wives out there, who are the paragon of virtue but unluckily get HIV transmitted.

    Hope that the message can be delivered to as many people as possible!

    ReplyDelete