Project: Planning

Project planning

In the previous two topics, we looked at applying a strength-based approach and group facilitation to working with a group of young people to participate in planning and carrying out a project, event or activity.

In this topic, we will look at project planning as it relates to initial planning in Project Checkpoint 2, the Activity Proposal Plan in Project Checkpoint 3 and Project Implementation Plan of Project Checkpoint 4.

In the next topic, we will look at what you need to do to prepare to collect feedback on the project and carry out a debrief with the participants. This is the information you need to collect so you can carry out an evaluation of the project in the next module.

The Activity Proposal Plan is an important part of the project. You will need to think about how to facilitate the participants to get their proposal approved or if this is unnecessary, have relevant stakeholders provide them with feedback. An optional template is provided later in this topic that you may use or modify it to suit your purposes. However, if your organisation already has a similar process and documentation you may use that instead. Read the criteria for the assessment to ensure your organisation’s documentation will still provide you with all the evidence you need to submit for assessment.

We briefly go over some of the basics of risk analysis and risk management planning. This has been covered in previous modules, so you already know how the principles apply to compliance, including for health and safety. Most likely your organisation has a process and documentation that you can use. You may submit this as evidence for assessment. Select the format that makes the most sense for your context. If you are unsure about your evidence meeting assessment requirements talk with your tutor.

There is also a template for the Project Implementation Plan that you may choose to use or modify; or you can create your own. Health and safety planning may be included in other documentation that you complete as part of organisational requirements. Please keep a copy to submit as assessment evidence at the end of the project. The Debrief Plan template is included with the next topic on feedback, debriefing and collecting data for evaluation.

Task: Identify planning needs

Review Assessment 4.1, 4.3 and read Project Checkpoints 2, 3 and 4.

Identify what planning the participants need to do for the project.

Think about how you can best facilitate the group to go through the planning process.

What is planning?

Planning is a process that has two main functions:

• What are we going to do?
• How are we going to get it done?

For this process to work well two things are crucial:

• Goals or objectives must be clearly defined
• Resources – time, people, abilities, money, location, equipment, must be managed safely and effectively

There are many different planning models, and your organisation may have one they prefer you to use. However, a brief explanation is provided below of an overall process you could apply to your project.

Pre-planning and brainstorming – What are we going to do?

As a result of your initial pre-planning and first brainstorming session with the participants you will decide what you are going to do – which project, event, or activity? Its size, scope and purpose will depend on who your young people are and what is realistic for your context.

Ideally, you should identify an opportunity or need that the project could address. Set up a project that is part of or an extension of your day-to-day work with young people. In the pre-planning stage (what you set up before starting with the participants) identify something beneficial for the young people you work with to participate in or lead. Then set up your initial brainstorming session with the participants, who use their creativity to come up with ideas and to make some initial decisions.

Objectives – What are our goals or outcomes?

This is one of the most important steps in the planning process explored in more detail below. Goals are a road map that define the end result of the project. Everything you plan and do should help you to achieve the stated goals and outcomes. Goals help keep everyone focused and moving in the same direction. Well written goals make it possible to measure success – did the end project meet its stated goals? Therefore, set goals well at the beginning.

Sometimes a project or event does not meet its stated goals but is still a valuable experience. Perhaps it achieved unexpected but still beneficial results, or it provided excellent learning opportunities. With a strength-based approach always look at what went well to see what you can build on in the future.

Initial planning and assumptions

Following the initial brainstorming session in which the participants explore potential ideas for their project, event or activity should be, they make some initial decisions (see Project Checkpoint 2).

• what the project, event or activity will be
• goals for their project, event or activity

Once the goals are made you can make an initial plan, that includes things like:

• stakeholder/s identified
• risks identified
• resources required identified
• roles and expectations
• approximate timeline and milestones
• anything else relevant to initial decisions.

However, it is also critical to keep in mind that the initial planning phase is usually based on a great idea resting on assumptions and very imperfect or missing information; and you do not always know what you do not know. You need to facilitate or monitor the discussion at this stage with care to help steer it in a productive direction as participants explore what they know for sure and what they do not know. When someone makes a claim, ask them how they know this is true. Guide the group to question their assumptions and identify gaps in their knowledge. At the end of the discussion, participants take fairly distributed responsibility to check assumptions and obtain missing information. Participants also discuss the best place or person to find out what they need to know. They bring this information back to the group to complete the planning.

Alternatives – what will we do instead?

Most likely, once participants check out their initial plan, they will need to come up with at least one alternative. They may need to brainstorm alternative ideas based on new information. It is a normal part of the process to need to change an initial plan as new information comes in. It is also important to look carefully at the risks and benefits of the alternatives.

Finally, your participants should have enough information to make decisions and put together a proposal. This is an important step and we will explore it in more detail below. It is part of exploring alternatives. They take their proposal to a manager or other stakeholder to get feedback and eventually agreement that they can go ahead with their plan. They may need to make further changes to the plan based on the feedback they get.

Implementation plan – all the details of how to put the plan into action.

Once the participants have the go ahead, they can now make a plan that includes all the necessary details to carry out the plan safely and effectively. We will explore this further below. It includes having contingency.

Implement or carry out the plan – put plan into action.

This is where you get to see if all your efforts and planning pay off as you carry out your implementation plan.

Evaluate the results – how did we do?

This is the final important step. A plan to collect feedback and evaluate the project should be part of the planning process. We explore this in the next topic. Evaluation serves two key functions:

• Did we succeed? Were the goals set at the start achieved or not? If not, what were the gains? What were the lessons?
• What did we learn? Carrying out a project like this is always a learning experience you and the participants can evaluate and reflect on. What went well, and why? How could the process have been improved? Which skills did we practice and develop? And how could we transfer this learning into other areas?

Resources and links

Planning is an important category within the life skills that young people need in their kete of knowledge. Find further information and insights in Strengthening Life Skills for Youth.¹

Why set goals?

An overall goal or objective is the result you expect to achieve from the effort you put in. A goal can be a statement of what you plan to achieve. It provides a target that you can direct your efforts and resources towards. Goals can also be statements of specific actions you take as you progress towards your target (final objective or goal); it is like a roadmap that you follow to meet your destination. Achievement of the goal is the destination.

Goals are important for groups because they help keep everyone focused on the same result and pointed in the same direction. As you work on a project regularly refer back to the goals and use them to decide where to put your time, effort and resources and not waste them on things that will not help you achieve the goals.

Goals enable you to measure your success. They help provide a sense of accomplishment. You know you made progress or achieved because you can look at a goal and see that it was met. In this way, goals help people stay motivated and focused.

However, goals are only useful if they are well written. A badly written goal is difficult to achieve or use to measure success. One very important skill young people can learn is how to write good goals.

SMART goals

You may already be familiar with SMART goals, which is a commonly used method to help people write and set goals. SMART goals enable us to measure progress and be accountable to our success.

SMART is an acronym that stands for:

Specific

We narrow the scope and are precise for more effective planning. A specific goal is a statement that answers questions like these:

• What exactly needs to be accomplished?
• Who is responsible? What steps must be taken?

Measurable

We define what will prove progress and/or achievement. A measurable goal means you can track progress. It is something we can quantify.

Achievable

We give the goal a reality check. Is this realistic for our group to achieve? Consider resources, time, people, skills. It may be a wonderful idea, but we may need to scale it back for us to be successful.

Relevant

We relate our goal to the ‘big picture’. Why are we setting this goal? Does it reflect who we are and our purpose? Does it properly relate to the thing we want to do?

Time-bound

We give our goals a time limit. We set time-related parameters, so everyone knows when we will finish and where to put the milestones. How much time is available to achieve the goal? Setting time limits is part of making the goal realistic. We may need to scale back our goals if we do not have enough time.

Some SMART goals define the acronym slightly differently to the above. If you prefer to use an alternative model please do. For the purpose of this project relevant can mean that the goal aligns with the project and what the actual project, event or activity is that the participants decide to plan.

How to write SMART goals

There is a lot of easily available information about how to write SMART goals that you can adapt for the young people you are working with.

If the participants do not yet know how to write SMART goals or need a refresher, you can start by showing them examples of well written SMART goals that relate to their daily life, school or workplace. Explain the acronym using these examples. Select examples most likely to resonate with your participants; for example you could modify some of these in the link below. Personalise them for individuals in the group.

5 SMART goals examples for teens by Carmen Proctor²

Once they know what a well written SMART goal looks like, put up pairs of goals – one well written and one badly written on the same topic. Ask the group to identify which goals are SMART and why. For example, a specific goal is – ‘we raise over $300 dollars’ - while an unspecific goal is – ‘we make some money’. It is easier to plan for how to raise a specific amount, while ‘some money’ is vague and unhelpful and may not be enough to meet your other goals! Discuss why badly written goals make planning difficult.

Then, have the group brainstorm goals for the project, which you together refine into SMART goals. As you continue with your initial planning you may need to revisit the goals or later on set interim goals that can help you to achieve the overall goals or objectives set at the start of the project.

Task: SMART goals and Project Checkpoint 2

Read Project Checkpoint 2 in Assessment 4.1, 4.3 and reflect on the following question:

• How could you use SMART goals in the initial planning phase of the project?

What to do – initial planning phase

Participants set goals and objectives for the project as part of their initial planning. Once they have decided what they want to do they need to do some initial planning to see how realistic their ideas are. Most likely, once they start the initial planning, they will need to go back to refine their main idea and goals. This is a normal part of the process and is to be expected.

Below is a list of things you will most likely need to do with the participants as part of the initial planning phase. There may be other aspects to consider depending on the young people you work with and organisational requirements. Remember to keep evidence of this initial planning. You may use or modify the provided template, create your own or use documentation or processes already in place at your organisation. Please read the assessment criteria to make sure that the evidence of initial planning you submit at the end of the project will be sufficient.

Identify stakeholders

Who is affected by us doing this project? It may be useful to think of these as internal stakeholders (the participants, you, managers, others at the organisation) and external stakeholders (general public, customers, parents).

• Who will be affected? How will they be affected?
• Will we need to tell them about it? How might we communicate with them?
• Will we need permissions from any stakeholders?

Identify risks and resources

What do you need to complete this project? Resources include everything you are likely to need including money, equipment, materials, a venue and other people with expert skills or knowledge. What are the risks of doing this project? What could go wrong? What are the consequences of not meeting our goals?

This mostly applies to health and safety - who could get hurt and how? But it can also apply to money and other resources. For example, if they are raising money, what happens if they do not raise enough money? If the project requires a specific location or environment, what happens if you cannot access this location? What if there is no public transport? What happens if the weather is bad? If you depend on an external stakeholder for materials or equipment, what happens if it falls through?

Depending on who the participants are you may like to assign risks with a number based on how likely it is; from 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (highly likely) and how serious the consequences would be. Apply the health and safety risk analysis matrix to all risks.

At this point they may need to modify their expectations. They may also need to go and find information they are missing.

Timelines and milestones

As part of the goal setting, have participants think about how much time they have to prepare for and carry out the project. They then need to think about the likely steps (milestones) and how long they will need for each step. As a result, they may need modify their goals and decisions about what they want to do. You can help them to be realistic by asking questions until they arrive at something you know is doable. Breaking up an initial plan into milestones and putting them into a timeline helps everyone to see the whole potential project more clearly. You can do this using a whiteboard and sticky notes. Participants can move parts of a potential plan around until they have a timeline with milestones that is achievable.

This is a Microsoft spreadsheet you can download. It is set out as a simple four-week project timeline. The group can use this and keep it updated as they make changes during planning and as they progress through the planning process.

Four week project timeline Microsoft Excel template³

Roles and expectations

It is good to clarify roles and expectations as early in the project as possible. This includes being very clear with the participants on what your role is and what they can expect from you. This will depend on the capabilities of the group as a whole in terms of participation and leadership. You should also clarify what their role is and what is expected from them.

Within the parameters that you set up for roles and expectations, wherever possible allow participants to assign roles and determine expectations themselves as a group during the initial planning phase of the planning process. You can monitor and keep the discussion within the predetermined parameters.

Why do this? When people make decisions themselves their level of commitment is higher. They are more likely to hold themselves and each other accountable because they have greater ownership over the project. They not only set the goals, but also decide who will be responsible for what and how they will hold each other accountable.

Young people are often told what to do, what to think and how to behave. But what if they have to come up with the ‘rules’ for themselves? What if they have to engage fully and think seriously about what it would mean to take responsibility for the success of the project and creating a safe environment that is fair to everyone? How much of this you can realistically expect from the young people you work with depends on who they are, the nature of the project, and organisational requirements. And no matter how self-motivated the group is, you still need to monitor the situation and step in when necessary. But this is one way to progressively give young people more autonomy and self-management of their own learning and activities.

Ideas to generate youth determined roles and expectations

Have a group discussion about who should be responsible for what, how everyone should behave during the project and how everyone should be held accountable for their contribution. You can talk about fairness, respect, and achievement of goals.

Put participants into pairs or smaller groups to come up with ‘rules’ that will make the project fair for everyone. They can then share these with the wider group and discuss until there is consensus. You may need to moderate part of this discussion if there is serious disagreement that is not being resolved. Also, having decided as a group what the roles should be, the participants can come up with the fairest yet most effective way to decide who does what.

If your group already has expectations, you can use these as a starting point to create ones specific for the project. You can provide greater structure to the discussion and have more influence over the final roles and expectations by providing them with the roles and asking them to decide how it will be determined who does what. You could also provide them with the categories you want the expectations to cover and they decide what they will be. For example, expectations for communication, disagreements, respecting each other, achieving the milestones, doing a fair share of the work, doing what you said you would do, handling the money, using dangerous equipment, talking to customers. The aspects you and/or the young people select will depend on the group and the project.

One way to do this is to put relevant topics on sheets of paper pinned to the wall around the room. Give participants sticky notes and pens. They write and post ideas or ‘rules’ to any paper they want. Then the notes are collected, and the ideas shared. Collectively the group comes up with the roles and expectations for the project.

And do not forget to include celebrations and rewards. How should the group celebrate achieving milestones in their planning? How should they celebrate the final achievement?

Task: Initial planning template

Look again at the initial planning section of Project Checkpoint 2 and the Initial Planning template (if using).

Think about how you might go about applying this as a follow up to the initial brainstorming by the group. Make notes on activities you could use to help facilitate the group to make these initial planning decisions. If you do not use the template, decide how you are going to capture evidence of initial planning to submit for assessment at the end of the project.

Initial Planning template

Task: Create an activity proposal plan

Read through Project Checkpoint 3 of Assessment 4.1, 4.3

At this checkpoint, your task is to support the group to create an activity proposal plan, or similar. An Activity Proposal Plan template is provided but you do not have to use it if your organisation already has similar documentation in place. You can use processes and documentation that are part of your regular practice. If you are unsure if this meets assessment requirements, please check with your tutor.

Activity Proposal Plan template

Why create a proposal?

Once the group has gone through the initial planning and identified any information they still need to find or assumptions they need to check it is time to put all the information together and make some final decisions to put together a proposal. You can use the Activity Proposal Plan template as a guide, or you may provide them with other documentation to complete as required by the organisation.

Once young people start to explore their ideas and come up with a realistic proposal plan, they may have to go back and revise their original plan and possibly even their goals. Again, this is a normal part of the process at this stage.

Putting together a proposal before they create a more detailed plan is an important check on how realistic and achievable their goals are. It helps participants to focus and clarify what they actually plan to do and what they will need to achieve it. They are preparing to convince someone in authority outside of you and the group that this is a good plan and get their feedback and approval to go ahead. This is an opportunity for them to use their communication and presentation skills.

Getting feedback and if possible, approval is an opportunity for the plan to be checked by someone who is not you. This extra layer of scrutiny further helps set the group up for success. The person to whom they present their proposal can point out things the group may not have thought about, can ask and answer questions and provide relevant feedback including the necessities of boundaries and ethics approval (if required). Importantly, this is an opportunity for the group to receive positive affirmation by someone like a manager who gives approval for the plan and its budget to go ahead.

Keep it positive

It is important to make this proposal activity a very positive experience. The group works on completing the proposal with all the information they have available. You can support them through this.

If possible, select someone like a manager who gives the plan a ‘green light’. This person should use a strength-based approach to feedback; a strong emphasis on what the proposal does well. Any ‘room for improvement’ feedback should be delivered in a way that is specific, encouraging and useful (something the participants can action).

Also, have the group present the proposal in person. Even make it a pair of the participants’ responsibility to set up the meeting. The group presents the proposal in whichever format is most appropriate, but, if possible, include a written proposal that has all the information. The person giving the feedback can talk directly to points in the proposal and you can take notes on their feedback inside the written proposal for the group to discuss and action later.

Make sure you keep a list of everything that is positive to highlight in later discussions. The person who gives approval can ask questions to clarify information. At the end of the meeting, have a list of any changes the group needs to make or any suggestions for improvement.

Ask the person giving the feedback to finish the meeting on a high note – thank the group for their efforts, talk up the strengths of the proposal again. The aim is to build up participants with confidence and motivation to continue with the planning.

Once participants have feedback, they may need to make some changes to get approval.

Budget

As part of the proposal plan the young people need to put together a budget proposal. This is an excellent opportunity to help develop their financial literacy and numeracy. How much support the young people will need to put together a budget will depend on who they are and their capabilities.

This budget is for the proposal, so it is made up of estimates. Those participants responsible for putting the budget together will need to do research on prices for items the group wants to purchase. It may be necessary for you to set a limit for them to work with. If the proposed plan does not meet the budget the group may need to either refine the plan or find creative ways to do things within the budget.

How complex the budget the participants are responsible for is depends on what you know they are capable of. You may need to be more hands on and provide greater guidance for some groups. For example, you work with the group to complete the budget and model for them how to research prices and do the spreadsheet. However, make sure they still do some of it themselves. You can always monitor closely and check their math!

Resources and links

Here is a Budget calculator template you can download and modify to use with your group. The summary page could be used with the proposal plan and the more detailed budget breakdown as part of the implementation plan.

Budget calculator Microsoft Excel template⁴

Purpose and benefit

An important aspect of the proposal is persuasion. The group has to persuade the person who approves the plan that this is a good use of everyone’s time and resources.

Purpose

Participants should be able to answer the question – Why are we doing this? – in one or two sentences.

For example, we are going to train and join the 5k run to help raise money for Kids with Cancer. A member of our group has a little brother living with cancer and this organisation helps to support the family, so we want to give back.

Benefits

Participants should be able to answer the question – Why should I let you do this project, event or activity? This would include a list of benefits. Who benefits and what are those benefits?

In the initial planning stage participants identified the stakeholders. Here they should list the key stakeholders and state how they benefit. For example, the charity gains a donation of $xx.xx, the young people improve their fitness, and the organisation gets to participate in a community event.

Proposal for risk management

Ask part of the initial planning, participants identified potential risks for their project, event or activity. They need to include risk management as part of their proposal. For this they need to go back over the proposed plan and check they have identified all the reasonably likely or potentially serious risks.

Risk has two main parts:

• the probability that something could go wrong (not very likely to highly likely)
• the consequences if it does go wrong (minor to fatal)

The purpose of risk management is to ensure everyone stays safe and has a meaningful time without serious incident or consequence. Or if things do go wrong there is a plan in place to take care of it or minimise its impact.

Here are a few points to keep in mind:

• Not every risk needs to be taken seriously or have a contingency (backup plan), but risks should be noted and everyone made aware of them.
• Avoid catastrophic thinking – people worry so much about the risks they cannot move forward with the plan. Frame risk management in a positive way – this is how we keep ourselves safe and our project on track.
• Participants will need your guidance to pick up key risks and those that could be most serious, especially those associated with health and safety.
• There is risk management your organisation expects you to carry out and be responsible for regardless of the what the group decides to do. Make sure you meet organisational requirements as part of your own preplanning and monitoring of the project.

Risk management model

There are different models for risk management and your organisation may have one they prefer you to use. But a basic plan could look something like this:

1. Identify risks and sources of risk
2. Evaluate the risks – calculate the severity of their impact and their probability
3. Handle the risks (mitigate) – plan how you will avoid the risk or things you need to do to keep consequences to a minimum
4. Contingency and emergency plan and monitor and control any ongoing risks.

If you already have a risk management process and documentation you are expected to use, please use that or modify/simplify it for the participants to use.

Risk identification and analysis

Identify and deal with risks to the project as early as possible. To help identify risks put them into categories. What these are will depend on where you work and the nature of your project, but the usual ones are:

• health and safety
• money, budget, costs
• schedules – timelines and deadlines
• scope – things that increase the size of the project or add to it
• quality – final outcome may not be as good as you want
• people and resources (materials, equipment, venue)
• other situations outside your control like the weather, or a road being closed

Once you have a list of potential risks, have the participants discuss and give them a score (0 – 5) based on how probable it is the risk will happen. For example, if you want to hold an outdoor event on the rainiest month of the year you might give ‘bad weather’ a probability score of 4. It will not definitely happen, but it is highly likely that it could. You then rate each risk for impact (0 – 4). So, the impact rating for a rainy day on an outdoor event might rate as a 3 or even 4. Rain will probably mean fewer people come to the event and even those who do, do not enjoy it much because of the rain. If you were using the event to raise money the impact rating would be especially high as low attendance means low income and might not be enough to reach your target or even properly cover costs. Health and safety risks that could cause injury or even be fatal must be taken very seriously even if their probability is low.

Risk response planning

Every risk identified should be noted, but not every risk needs to be taken seriously. However, high impact risks or high probability risks need to be managed. What will you do if X happens?

The best response is to remove the risk entirely. For example, if bad weather is a high risk, could you hold an equably fun event indoors? But is there a venue available you could use? Would the school or a local club let you use their hall? If you have to hire the venue, do you have the funds? How does this impact your budget and schedule?

If you cannot remove the risk, what can you put in place to minimise the risk or make the environment safe? This is especially important for potential health and safety risks. For example, if you are using a gas BBQ do you have safety procedures in place for transporting and keeping the gas bottle and hot equipment away from people?

Risk contingency

Despite best efforts to remove or minimise risks things can still go wrong. This is why you need to have in place contingency plans. What will you do if things go wrong? Some of these things will be compliance or organisational requirements. For example, an evacuation plan for an emergency situation. Other risk contingencies are simply there to minimise the impact of something going wrong. For example, if the group is giving a dance performance do you have a back-up plan for if the sound system fails. Maybe, someone brings an extra player and speakers (not as good) but at least the show can still go on.

Risk ownership

An important part of risk management is deciding who is going to be responsible for what. It is all very well to put bringing along back up equipment for the dance performance, but who is going to do it?

Risk monitoring

It is a good idea to put someone in charge of risk management, and for them to make a checklist. As the group goes through planning and implementing the project, event or activity someone needs to make sure the risk management plan is being followed. If they have a list of things to check, it makes it much easier to notice when something is not in place. For example, on the day of the sausage sizzle they have a checklist to check the meat is in the fridge (not on the bench) and the fridge has been plugged in. They might also check the BBQ and gas bottle are in the correct position before the gas is turned on. They could also check the fire extinguisher and first aid kit have been packed in with the rest of the equipment. Appointing one responsible person as the safety monitor with a checklist can help things go more smoothly.

Task: Project implementation plan

Read through Project Checkpoint 4 of Assessment 4.1, 4.3.

At this checkpoint, your task is to support the group to create a project implementation plan, or similar. A Project Implementation Plan template is provided but you do not have to use it if your organisation already has similar documentation in place. You can use processes and documentation that are part of your regular practice. If you are unsure if this meets assessment requirements, please check with your tutor.

Project Implementation Plan template

General advice

The purpose of this plan is to make sure everything is ready for implementation. Once the proposal plan is approved, the group can go ahead and make sure all the details are in place.

Every member of the group should have a specific role to play and tasks they need to take care of. What these are depends on the nature of the project, event or activity. The group may need to meet a couple of times to go over the plan and especially right before implementation. Depending on the project, you may even have a rehearsal.

If someone in the group is away or unable to complete their tasks, have they communicated this to the leader or right people in the group? Is someone else ready to step in? How you manage this will depend on the nature of the group. However, if you have concerns, one option is to pair participants up to take care of responsibilities. This is similar to the tuakana-teina model of youth development where a younger person learns from an older or more skilled youth.

Tasks and roles can be assigned on the basis of interests and capability. Or you can assign a young person who struggles more with things like time management or turning up on time with an older person who is more reliable. You need to monitor the creation of the implementation plan, but as much as possible leave it to the participants to manage themselves. One person could be responsible for collecting the planning from each unit and putting it all together. They could go over it with you and you only need to contact those whose plan details need a bit more work. Again, how you manage this depends on the size of the group, who the participants are, the scope and nature of the project and organisational requirements.

Read through Project Checkpoints 2, 3 and 4 in Assessment 4.1, 4.3

You should now have what you need to facilitate the planning process for this project, except for the Debrief plan to collect data and feedback to use in your evaluation of the project. We will cover this in the next topic.

The purpose of these checkpoints is to ensure you are ready to work through the planning stages of the project. How hands on you need to be depends on who your young people are and the nature of the project you are doing with them.

Remember, these templates are optional. You may modify them for your purposes, or if your organisation uses different processes and documentation you may use those, or you may create your own. Please just read through the assessment criteria to make sure that the evidence you submit for assessment will meet the criteria. If you have any questions, please talk with your tutor.

Templates (same as those introduced earlier in this topic):

• Initial Planning template
• Activity Proposal Plan template
• Project Implementation Plan template

You should now be ready to start working on planning with your participants for Project Checkpoint 2 (initial planning session), Project Checkpoint 3 and Project Checkpoint 4 (most of the implementation plan).