Project Cycle Management for

International Development

Cooperation

Presentation of “Project Cycle Management” CourseTeacherPietro Celotti

Università degli Studi di Macerata

7 October 2011

Section 1My presentation

Your teacher

• With an education in the humanities, I have designed and coordinated in the last ten years several European projects in the fields of culture, rural tourism, career guidance, lifelong education and internationalisation of SMEs

• Experience in Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Spain, France, UK, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, India, Malaysia, Tunisia

Your teacher today

• In 2010 and 2011 I was teacher of Project Cycle Management in the Master in Relations with Eastern Countries of the University of Macerata

• Since 2010 I am partner of t33, a consulting firm supporting public bodies in managing and evaluating EU programmes and projects

• Today I am more a project evaluator than a proposal writer and a project manager

Your teacher’s experience• I have been working for:

– Local authorities

– Regional/local agencies of development;

– SMEs

– Sicily region

– Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Section 2“Project Cycle Management for International DevelopmentCooperation” course presentation

Project Cycle Management• This course is strongly related with the job

dimension

• We have to get familiar with two different job positions:

– Proposal writing

– Project management

Proposal writing

• Identifying the project idea

• Analysing the funding programme

• Creating the network of partners

• Elaborating the proposal (with plan of action and budget)

• Checking the formal completeness of the proposal

• “Managing” the proposal writing team and ensuring that the proposal is submitted!

Project Management

• Programming the whole project at operational, administrative and financial level

• Creating and empowering the team

• Coordinating the network of partners

• Developing the activities at local level

• Running the ordinary administration of the project

Project Management

• Monitoring the project progress

• Finalising and sending the technical reports

• Finalising and sending the financial reports

• Keeping transparent and collaborative relations with the managing authority

What about you?

• Do you have any experience in this field?

• Are you more a proposal writer of a project manager?

• What are in your opinion the competencies, which are necessary to cover these positions?

• What are the organisations where such positions exist?

Our lessons

• Presentation of the "Project Management" course: summary of the issues, bibliography, case history

• Project approach, Project Cycle Management with emphasis on Identification and Formulation phases

• The logical framework approach: stakeholder analysis and problem analysis

Our lessons

• The logical framework approach: Logframe matrix

• Planning and scheduling project's activities: design of the Gantt Chart, re-scheduling of the activities. Principles of technical monitoring of the project

• Defining project's costs: identification of budget burdens, highlighting of budget items, analysis of staff costs and indirect costs. Principles of financial monitoring of the project

Our lessons

• Project management: the horizontal competencies approach (Results orientation, Methodical, Organising)

• Project management: the horizontal competencies approach (Decision Making, Problem Solving, Networking, Communication)

Our lessons

• Evaluation of the project: quantitative approach

• Evaluation of the project: qualitative approach

• Total: 40 hours

Our methodology

• Lectures

• Case histories

• Exercises

Strengths

• Related to the actual job dimension

• Operational, concrete

• International

• Oriented towards socially, environmentally, economically sustainable development

• Based on real projects

Weaknesses

• Limited scientific background

• Linked to the teacher’s professional experience

• More experimented in courses for professionals than in courses for academic students

• Based on teamwork - not easy to be practiced in case of a very small class!

Opportunities

• Good basis for a training period

• Course to be mentioned in a job interview

• “Proposal writer” and “Project manager” positions exist in all organisations working on a project basis

• More and more organisations are starting to work on a project basis

Threats

• Case histories will be old when you will approach the job dimension

• Project management tools will be more advanced when you will approach the job dimension

A basic PM bibliography

• Project Cycle Management Guidelines, European

Commission, March 2004

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/infopoint/publications/in

dex_en.htm

• Communication and visibility manual, European

Commission, July 2009

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/work/visibility/index_en.

htm

• Guide for Regional Development Agencies, Sviluppo

Marche (SVIM), 2009

Remember the Welcome lesson

of Wednesday

p.celotti@t33.it