Q Project Phases Aims and Objectives  
Aims and Objectives

"The winds will be profitable for those who know where they are sailing to". In quality projects it is essential to describe and ensure a common understanding of where you are heading to and what you want to achieve.

 

This part of the tool deals with the aims and the objectives of a quality project. The main question that you should answer in this section is:

 

 

­What are the objectives of your quality project?

For answering this question you have a collection of resources. These include a list of supportive questions in "Planning Questions", a description of the relevant "Issues", some "Recommendations" based on previous experience and some "Evaluation Questions".

You can use some or all of them to clarify your thinking. You will probably find a certain order and emphasis between the resources that will suit your way of thinking.

After having a look at the resources, you will have a chance to write down your ideas in the "Wrinting Page" and to remind yourself of the most important items in "To Remember" .

You can use a "Writing Page" and "To Remenber" in every phase and they will be available to the next time you enter with the same login.

You can go to the "Making It an Entirety" and print the whole plan (constructed with the Writing Page from every phase) at the moment you decide.

Planning Questions

interno: Writing page

interno: toremember

  1. Are the objectives defined in accordance with the rationale of the project?
  2. Are the objectives expressed unequivocally and in a practical way?
  3. What sort of client (internal or external) is targeted?
  4. Are the objectives appropriate to the target client group?
  5. What are the short, medium and long-term objectives?
  6. Do you want to end up with a Quality System, or do you want to improve the quality of a process or practice?

 

Issues

The Issues

A project entails setting up structures and activities in co-operation with other projects for the attainment of a goal that may be either a general aim or a long-term objective. Each project will have its own operational objectives. Furthermore, a quality project will be talked about when the idea of improving the service offered to a client is its main aim.

Often people have ideas for projects, perhaps inspired by the example of others, but no clear objectives. In that case one needs to define realistic aims in terms of:

 

the resources available,

 

the underlying rationale,

 

the client group to be targeted.

 

Although the success of a quality project does depend on the precision with which its aims are specified, it remains true that good quality may be found at all levels of organisation or provision. It is thus difficult to try to mark out the areas in which quality may be manifested if it is thought that everything outside that zone is not part of quality challenges.

 

If a project is to be set up successfully, definition is needed according to both a schedule (time) and to an institutional context (space).

 

What we are concerned with here is a quality project in the field of adult and continuing education. The ability to manage a quality management project should not be confused with the ability to teach adults. If it is to succeed in practice there must be clear boundaries of schedule and integration. There is a distinction made, therefore, between the organisational side, such as planning and finding resources for the project, and the educational side properly so-called.

Given that the objectives will determine the work to be undertaken and establish evaluation criteria, this stage of development needs to be systematically analysed. It involves assessing the relevance of the project in relation to its setting and to its declared aims. It is also useful to match the objectives up against the long-term aims of the quality project from time to time during its duration, in order to ensure overall coherence.

Recommendations

Recommendations

  1. Identify the client(s) targeted by your project and his/her/their expectations
  2. Clearly establish the scope of your project and fix appropriate objectives
  3. Do not hesitate to break down your project into sub-projects
  4. Make a clear distinction between what is within the province of professional training skills and what is the profession of adult training and the tasks of quality assurance

To get the importance of defining aims and objectives, you can see:

EQUIPE Case Study Geneva University Continuing Education: Geneva (Switzerland)

Evaluation Questions

Evaluation Questions

  1. How and how effectively did you monitor your objectives during the project?
  2. How often did you monitor your objectives?
  3. Did you change or modify your objectives during the course of the project?
  4. How did you evaluate the relevance of your objectives?
  5. Did the objectives cover the short, medium and long term?
  6. Have the objectives informed the structure of the evaluation?
  7. Did the objectives facilitate the accomplishment of long-term aims?
  8. Can you now formulate new objectives?
  9. Did the objectives include an idea of long-term continuity?