Development Cooperation Handbook/Guidelines/How to manage programmes for a learning organization that is projectized and employee empowering

Guidelines - Development Cooperation Handbook Steps and Tools

Programmes an expression of the organization’s vision and are conceived as concrete articulation of the organization’s mission and the organizational culture. Programmes allow the organization to be projectized, organize and sharing learning.

This is a list of some basic princple to consider while designing and managing programmes so that the organization that is projectized and employee empowering fundamental is manage the programme cycle in such a way that the program articulates and reinforces a culture of being projectized, learning and employee empowering .

• Sets a comprehensive framework within which various projects are conceived adequately responding to specific needs and rights;
• Ensures that the various specific projects actualize a unitary vision and act in a synergetic manner being reciprocally sustaining and reinforcing;
• Promotes a trusting and transparent communication climate both internally (amongst programme team) and externally (with partners and donors);
• Generates a “learning organization” climate, so that programme management function as an empowerment of project managers, who also are capable of delegating responsibilities and motivate their subordinate to assume responsibility for their tasks.
• Creates a work environment where organization personnel and its partners feel ownership of activities, outcomes and impacts;
• Is a programme constantly re-engineered in itinere through the feedbacks of programme evaluations that make possible understanding what are the most suited actions to respond to the target populations problems and identifies the managerial approaches best suited for achieving the expected results;
• Utilizes the evaluations reports to understand the knowledge needs of the organization and consequently make investments in HR capacities development;
• Promote a localization of senior managerial responsibilities so that there is less need of permanent expatriate staff, who will act as time-bound mentors rather than permanent controllers.

Resource implications

• By generating increased capacity of local Organization personnel to design projects and respond to call for proposals by international donors, Organization programme in Nepal will become less dependent on unrestricted funds.
• By promoting increased participation of partners in designing and implementing projects, projects will increasingly avail of partners’ capacity to access and share additional resources.
• The learning organization environment and the consequent investments in capacity development will upgrade the HRs and give returns in terms of improved efficiency and efficacy of resources allocations.
• By generating the conditions for increased responsibility of local staff in senior management posts, the programme will be less dependent on expatriate staff, so it will be more cost effective and will limit the loss of institutional memory associated with frequent senior leadership changes.

See also

Programme plan
How to establish a healthy communication climate

Project Integration
The communication climate in Organizations and Teams
Organizational Culture
The projectized organization
The learning organization
The employee empowering organization

Issue 8 ⇒ How to design and manage successful cooperation programmes?

In other sections of this handbook
Program identification
The Organization’s mission
The Organization’s vision

Designing and Managing Projects
The 3 level hierarchy of programme objectives
Project Managers and programme Managers