Q Project Phases Organisation  
Organisation

No project will be successful without an efficient and appropriate organisation. For example, the challenges of structures, procedures, recruitment and resources will need your special care. Well-grounded motivations and clear goals are not enough, you will also need a practical plan of the organisation to make the project work in practice.


This part of the tool will help you design an effective organisation for your quality project. The main question that you should answer in this section is:


­How to organise the 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 you 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. Is the quality project organised in a well-structured way (with a chain of command, resources, project team and participants)?
  2. Is the communications network between everybody involved clear and well defined?
  3. Is the action plan sufficiently clear in relation to the agreed criteria of the selected model?
  4. Are the methods and tools well-chosen in the light of the action plan and the quality project as a whole?
  5. Have the members of the project team received training in quality issues and methodology?
  6. Does the project make good use of the complementary skills of the team members?
  7. Have the different aspects of the advance planning (funding and timetable) been carefully considered?
  8. Is the action plan familiar to the whole team?
  9. Is the methodology familiar to and accepted by all the participants?
  10. Does the team have a leadership that is accepted and able to communicate with all levels of the hierarchy?
  11. Are the various stakeholders really committed to the quality project?
  12. Are the most important activities defined in relation to the budget and the timetable?

Issues

The Issues

The process of setting up the chosen model within a higher education establishment will determine the scope and organisational structure of the project, along with the development of the action plan and the means and methods to be used.


The aspects to be taken into consideration in doing this are:

  • The structure of the organisation for the project - the chain of command; the quality working party (project team with complementary skills). The process for setting up the model may be constructed as a top-down approach (as in London) or bottom-up (as in Lausanne and Porto)
  • Human resources - the identification of people with the relevant knowledge and skills
  • Financial resources – the identification of funding sources and the sums available to the project.
  • Planning - ‘unpacking’ the defined objectives; allocating responsibilities; devising appropriate methods, tools, budget, deadlines and so on.
  • Ways and means - choosing methods and tools appropriate to the project (quality training for participants, quality management tools, a timetable, financial estimates, dissemination methods).
  • Project management - the process of implementing the project; leadership; lines of communication; the co-ordination of the key people involved.

Recommendations

Recommendations
  1. The organisation of the project should be a well-planned and well-structured activity appropriate to the chosen model.
  2. It is important to involve the university authorities in the project team in order to enhance the probability of success.
  3. Planning (to work out the objectives and authority, to define methods, tools, responsibilities, timing, etc.) is a crucial part of the adult education quality approach.
  4. Awareness of the different roles of the various participants must be promoted, along with communications between the different parts of the organisation directly or indirectly involved in the project.
  5. It is important to decide when existing structures can be used, and when it is necessary to create a new working party for the quality project.
  6. It is essential that the stakeholders are sufficiently committed to promote a culture of quality in their own areas of responsibility.
  7. The impact of the project on its environment and the individuals and units more less involved must be borne in mind.
  8. It is important that the project can be evaluated by a good external auditor.
  9. The continuity of a quality setup must be considered by ensuring that there is a team that can monitor projects with a view to continuous improvement of the service.

Evaluation Questions

Evaluation Questions

1.Has the evaluation of the project been internally and externally audited?
2.Has the evaluation focussed on the most cherished aim of the project and carried out at each phase?
3.Were the action plan, the methods and the tools well suited to the objectives?
4.Was performance monitored at each stage of the project?
5.Have the results of the evaluation been disseminated by the various stakeholders?
6.Is there still a permanent ‘cell’ within the university which can follow up quality projects?