Crime prevention project management tips

Supporting your application by showing you have planned your project

Your application will be much stronger if you can show that you have thought about the key stages of your project and the time and resources needed to implement it effectively.

You are not expected to provide an exhaustive plan with your application, but showing how your project will be implemented will help to demonstrate that it is ready to go.

This initial activity breakdown can be used to develop a more detailed implementation plan if your project is approved for funding.   

Planning your project implementation

Many organisations struggle underestimate the time and resources required to complete projects. Answering the following questions will help you to identify and manage the tasks that you will need to undertake to complete your project successfully.

What are all the potential tasks that need to be completed to implement your project?

Tip – bring together all the key stakeholders and brainstorm all the tasks.

• Ask everyone to write down all the potential tasks that need to be considered to complete the project, using a separate post-it-note for each task.
• Identify any approvals, licenses or permits that will be required. What work will you need to complete before you are able to seek the approval?
• Once you have all the tasks identified, group them in to ‘like’ categories.
• Once the tasks are in groups, agree a summary heading for each group of tasks. These groups will be the key stages of your project.
• Organise all of your project stages in the order that they need to be undertaken and put the key tasks underneath each stage.
• List the resources that will be required to complete your project? Consider cost, people and skills, time and equipment.

How long should you allocate to complete the project?

Estimate how long each task will take to complete. Are you being realistic?

You might consider asking other people in your organisation who have managed similar projects for advice on how long to allocate to each task. This can be very helpful if you rely on getting approvals or permits from external organisations as it can be easy to underestimate how long these can take to obtain.

Tip – where possible, allow yourself some buffer time to complete the project to allow room for any unexpected issues.

What are the potential risks to successfully completing the project and how will you manage them?

• Do you have the skills and experience in your organisation to effectively manage your project?
• Is there sufficient management support within your organisation?
• Are all the key stakeholders engaged and involved?
• How will you manage any issues in relation to increases in costs or timelines?
• What is your contingency plan if any of these risks occur?

Who will lead and manage the project and who will complete the tasks?

• Agree who will be responsible for overseeing the project and ensuring all tasks are completed.
• Identify who has the skills and resources needed to complete each task and agree responsibilities.

Monitoring progress

It is important you actively monitor processes, tasks and timelines to keep the project on track. Sometimes activities may not go according to plan and you may need to alter some project activities along the way. It is important to be flexible and to adapt to ensure you still deliver the project outcomes within your committed timeframes.  

It is essential that you consider how you will monitor progress and capture any lessons learned before your project even starts.  

You must ensure that you keep key partners, including funding bodies, informed about the progress of your project. This includes discussing the need to make any changes to activities or time frames.

The following questions will help you to monitor and evaluate your project. Remember to record any changes to your project plan as part of your monitoring and evaluation.

What do you need to consider in monitoring the project?

• Who will monitor progress against your project plan?
• Who do you need to consult or inform if changes to the project plan are required?
• What does your funding agreement say about changes to your project?
• Who do you need to keep informed of progress and how will this happen?

You are required to notify the department if you plan to make any changes to what your project will do and deliver, how you use project funds (both the grant funding and any contribution your organisation is making to the project), or when you will meet the reporting requirements of your funding agreement.

Monitoring your project closely will help you to identify and prevent any issues that may impact on progress. It will also help you to discuss the matter with the department and get our approval for any variations to your project before you make the changes.