Involving users
Funders like to know not only how those that benefit from the proposed activity or project have been involved in its planning but also how they might be involved in its ongoing management.
There is no straightforward answer to this question and no standard reply. How you involve the participants or beneficiaries will depend on the nature of the project.
There are several options for involving users or beneficiaries in planning and managing projects and activities. These include...
Project Board or Steering Group
Project Board or Steerting Group
A Project Board will normally consist of those that will benefit from the project (often called the customers or users), those that will deliver the service or project (often called the suppliers) and an executive (the person who has the power to make the ultimate decisions). The Project Board will be supported by the Project Manager.
People often feel that this is very people and time intensive, however, a Project Board does not need to meet on a regular timetable but should meet either at particular times when a key decision needs to be made or to consider issues when the project is deviating from the original plan. Mostly the board is kept informed of progress by reports (sometimes called Highlight Reports or Exception Reports). A Project Board will need some terms of reference ( the terms of reference for the Leicestershire Funding Toolkit are provided as an example) that say what the role of the Board is and how they will make decisions.
In an application for funding you may therefore say that a Project Board (sometimes called a Steering Group) will be established and naming the roles on the Board rather than the particular individuals. For example if you are developing a Project Board for a project supporting carers the project Board may consist of:
An executive (perhaps the Chief Executive or Chair of the organisation managing the project)
3 carers (drawn from the client group)
A representative from the community transport group who is providing transport for the project
A representative from a training company that is part of the project in terms of delivering training to Carers
The main benefit of having customers or users involved at this level is to give them a direct and central voice in how the project is delivered.
User Groups
One way in which users or the beneficiaries may be involved in the management of a project is to establish a user consultative group. You may want to do this when you want to be sure that the users have a clear opportunity to influence the way the project, service or activity is delivered. When planning the project you may for instance be able to identify some key points during the delivery when it will be critical to get the view of users in deciding what to do so you can establish a small group of users and convene it at particular times to address problems. Of course with information and communication technology it may be possible to involve users without them even having to meet but to seek their views electronically.
One advantage of establishing a user group is that you will be able to work with the group as part of the monitoring and evaluation of the activity or project.
However user groups do tend to be self-selecting, so you may not get the views of those most critical of the project, and in some cases users may not have the confidence to be involved in a formal setup. In this case you may want to consider…
Informal User Feedback
Some projects, particularly those working with disadvantaged groups, offer one to one support and tailored services based on individual needs. In these projects it can be very helpful if staff working directly with users are encouraged to get informal feedback on how the project is delivered, the quality of the service and if there are potential improvements. Though this is 'soft' information it can be very valuable in assessing whether the project is on course, and can be more meaningful than statistics and figures. Staff should be encouraged to pass this information up to the Project Manager or to the Management Board for consideration and remedial action where problems are identified.
