Results-focused Project Design and Management » Uncategorized

Vietnamese Results-focused Project Design and Management Workshop Wraps up With 27 New Graduates

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:04:07 +0000

A training workshop in Results-focused Project Design and Management has been delivered for 27 Vietnamese participants from various provinces and various government oversight and executing agencies. The training was fronted by a 3-man team of facilitators, namely Do Minh Hoai, Hong Anh Chu, and Hong Anh Nguyen, all graduates of the PPMS Training of Facilitators in various occasions: Do Minh Hoai (TOF Hue 2009), Hong Anh Chu (TOF Hua Hin 2007), Hong Anh Nguyen (TOF Luang Prabang, 2009).

The participants were trained in different tools used in the conduct of participatory planning and management, including stakeholders analysis, problem and objectives tree analysis, and the results chain. The active participation by the trainees showed their keen interest to truly learn and practically apply the processes in their respective projects.

The workshop successfully closes today with 25 Vietnamese public servants earning not just certificates but more importantly, valuable knowledge and skills they can use to ensure good project design and ultimately project success.

World Bank Shares Concepts on Government Learning

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:26:58 +0000

The Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank recently released a publication entitled “The Black Box of Governmental Learning, The Learning Spiral-A Concept to Organize Learning in Governments”. The publication aims to address the problem on how best to educate the government with lessons from the past.

Government is not known to be the best learner from past lessons and as a result, resources are wasted, services are undelivered, and most of all, the citizens, especially the poor, are denied of social, legal and economic protection. It is for this reason that the need to educate the government of these lessons has become more crucial than ever. WB identifies the reason why government seems to never ever learn, and this is said to be because learning in government settings is hard to execute and conceptualize, and hence, the term “black box”.

This book introduces a theory-based concept that has been applied successfully over the past decade in a number of conferences and events comprising civil servants and staff of government all over the world.

Download the book.

Regional Training on Results-focused Project Design and Management in Cebu Closes Today

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 06:22:50 +0000

Team 5 in serious discussion about their design summary

This 5-day workshop, organized by COSO, brought together 33 participants from Afghanistan, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Samoa, Tuvalu, and USA. It is designed to provide project directors and managers with immediate assistance in designing and managing projects for development results.

The training covered lecture and practice sessions on participatory planning tools for the development of the design and monitoring framework, as well as new topics on change management, implementation planning and monitoring and evaluation.

The training ran from 31 May until 4 June 2010.

One of many activities during the workshop was captured on video below.

First Results-Focused Project Design and Management Training in 2010 Scheduled in June

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:11:57 +0000

Alas, after months of waiting and the uncertainty of it happening at all this year, a 5-day training on Results-focused Project Design and Management is finally scheduled on 31 May – 4 June in the Philippines. The training takes us down south to the island of Cebu and will be offered to executing agencies, implementing agencies and oversight agencies of the Philippine government.

The training now slightly veers away from the intensive 9-day facilitation training done in the past, and has recently undergone some curricular revisions, mainly highlighting the tools for participatory results-focused project design and management, but still keeping the values subsumed under change management, conflict management and participatory planning.

Being the only training to be delivered in the English language this year, this run also brings together participants from other countries (AFG, INO, NEP, PAK, USA).

Visualizing Systemic Change

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:15:46 +0000

Systemic change is an interesting metaphor. It shows how a small change can trigger a series of other small ones that eventually ends with a big bang. It is not only difficult, it is a really complex process. Where do you begin? In the end going to start. Or the other way around? How will you get into the big change? Use small and incremental (almost unrecognizable) changes first and then lead to the big ones. How do you select those small changes? Which is the smallest change that can trigger the big one? What would connect one small change to the rest? What connectors will you use? What are the triggers and receptors for those connectors? Then, there is the timing. How long a time in-between the incremental changes would you need to trigger the next wave of incremental changes? Will they all connect as if they were orchestrated? Very complex indeed! Yet, many change agents, development facilitators and leaders casually suggest actions that lead to systemic changes! Do they really understand what they say as an electrical engineer would?

IAF Global Flipchart January 2010 is Now Available

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:44:21 +0000

IAF Global Flipchart, the International Association of Facilitators’ official newsletter, has already released its very first issue for 2010 which includes:

- Member of the Month, Jon Jenkins, Groningen, The Netherlands,

- News from Professional Development

- Candidates for Editor of the Global Flipchart

The issue also shares a technique called Organization’s History, which is an activity that helps a facilitated group capture an organization’s history.

To read the issue, click here.

Making Compelling Presentations

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:33:03 +0000

One of the best communicators of today is Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, Inc. And this is because of how he successfully turns product launches into theatrical experiences for his audience. If you wish to learn more about his presentation techniques, his secrets are shared to us by Carmine Gallo, a columnist from Businessweek.com, on this link.

2010 Asia Facilitators Network Workshop Schedule Now Available

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:20:04 +0000

The Asia Facilitators Network (AFN) has recently announced its schedule of various workshops on facilitation for the year 2010. For more details, please visit the AFN website www.fns.sg.

e-Learning Chinese Version now in Production

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:45:16 +0000

In response to the requests from our Chinese participants, the Chinese version of the PPMS/DMF as well as the implementation and change management modules is now in full production. Shooting began in December 1 with Edan Empainado as our videographer. This time, we have a special star in the person of Rebecca Hong. Rebecca is a linguist and the current District Governor of Toastmasters International (www.chainatoastmasters.org) representing District 85, Mainland China. She also works as facilitator and consultant as well as co-owner of TeamsWork (www.globalteamswork.com), a training-cum-consulting house in Shanghai .

Together with her husband, Rebecca took the TOF course in Luang Prabhang last (21-29 July 2009). She was so excited after the course and is looking for potential clients for PPMS/DMF workshops. She wanted to start with non-profit organizations and associations and then move on to government entities and perhaps even ADB. She helped Andrea and Pet in the conduct of the recently concluded TOF Shanghai (from 17 to 25 November, 2009) where a total of 27 participants were trained.

In an interview, she said that the whole exercise was her first experience in doing the translation and then presenting the content in the internet. This was her first time and she is glad she took the challenge although she wished that the materials would have been less formal and allowed the use of colloquial. She was glad that she took the entire e-learning course before taking on the translation and presentation assignment from ADB. “I really learned and understood more after I took the e-Learning course in addition to the TOF.”

Her loving husband is a trainer and facilitator, an executive speech coach and a certified member of the International Association of Facilitators. She continues to learn from him as they journey through life together.

Andrea and Peter expect the Chinese e-learning version to be online by the end of January, 2010.

Russian e-Learning in Post Production

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:38:28 +0000

The Russian version of the PPMS/DMF, Implementation Planning and Change Management e-Learning modules are now in post-production phase and will soon be online. This version is being made in response to the requests by the Russian speaking facilitators and former participants of the face to face courses. The video shooting happened from 9 to 13 November, 2009 at the ADB TV studio room by Edan Empainado as the videographer.

Ms Nana Kvanchiany and Ms Alissa Klima are the module translators and presenters. Nana handled the nine modules of the PPMS/DMF. She graduated from the TOF in Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan and co-facilitated with Andrea and Pet TOF in Armenia and Turkey. She is a Project Analyst in the ADB Tajikistan Resident Mission. Meanwhile, Alissa delivered the Implementation planning and change manage management modules is a freelance facilitator from Uzbekistan. She continued working with ADB related projects since 1999 and has been with the Performance Management Systems activities since 2006. She co-facilitated TOFs in India and Turkey.

Being their very first e-learning presentation experience, both Nana and Alissa discovered the subtle differences between the traditional face to face and the e-learning versions. E-learning allows you to take the course at your own time and phase. You can “stop and go” and repeat a module as you may need. The learning rhythm adjusts with your natural speed and learning style. It is dynamic, lively, exciting, stimulating and practical as it takes the learners into a step-by-step process. Both Nana and Alissa would like to invite the future PPMS/DMF participants, facilitators, implementation managers, change agents, friends and colleagues to take the e-learning course right in front of their computer screens in their respective work places.

The Russian videos will now move into the video and sound editing while other elements like handouts, quizzes and certificates are being translated. Then, the completed elements will be given to the Moodle specialists for more HTML and SWF programming before being mounted on this site. Meanwhile, Andrea has just announced the pre-production of the Chinese versions.