The 3 Learning Phases of Project Kick-Off
Learning About Yourself as a Manager
The process of learning can begin before the project officially kicks off! It is important to begin the journey as a project manager with a habit of self-evaluation and self-knowledge. These skills will then transfer over to learning about your team, your beneficiaries, and learning about the project’s areas of growth as a whole.
Take a moment to reflect on yourself and the specific experience you bring to the project, as well as on the potential biases, assumptions, and myths you might have before starting the project. Click the link below to view a list of self-reflection questions designed to help you learn about yourself as a manager.
These questions are designed for an iterative process of project management and are meant to be revisited on a quarterly basis.
Learning About Your Implementing Partners
Coming in to the project with a curiosity and desire to learn from your partners, as well as share your knowledge and expertise with them, will help to establish strong partnerships from the get-go. You will be working with many partners as a manager, all with different incentives for taking part in the work.
Implementing partners typically come from varied cultural backgrounds and have different experiences with outside organizations. There are most likely power dynamics at play that will be good to address as soon as you can. Your success as a project manager can begin by addressing these dynamics while promoting strong communication skills at all levels. Click on the link below to view some reflection questions to get you started on building strong partnerships.
Similar to the first phase questions, these questions are designed for an iterative process of project management and are meant to be revisited quarterly, since your relationships can change during implementation.
Learning About Your Donor: Communication For Success
Who is your donor, what policies do they have in place, and what is the plan for communication with them?
This phase gets at the larger governance system that will guide your project from kick-off to close-out. Depending on your donor’s specific incentives and way of working, it would be best to advocate for an iterative approach to implementation based on learning from the reality on the ground as soon as possible. This can be added to the overall governance system before the first activity takes place. For example, this governance system would outline the process for changing the activity schedule or adjusting outputs in the logical framework as needed.
Some donors can take a more hands-on approach and want to be included in project reporting and change, while others will prefer to receive communications at the end of each year. Click the link below to look over some reflection questions to guide you on project communication systems.
