Our simple guide articulates the key components and important steps in developing a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan. Our intention is to help you plan your M&E more strategically, so that your project can achieve the intended results. Find out how and when to transform your M&E vision into implementation, when to design an M&E framework, how to collect useful data, how to disseminate and utilise results, and more.
Let’s take a look at what these ‘steps,’ ‘elements’ and ‘activities’ entail:
One thing to keep in mind – the specifics of each project’s M&E plan will differ on a project-by-project basis, however, they should all follow the same basic structure and include the same key elements.
Monitoring and evaluation plan should be created right in the beginning when the project interventions are being planned. Planning project interventions and designing an M&E strategy should go hand in hand. Planning the M&E this early on also helps to ensure that there is a robust system in place to monitor every little intervention and activity of the project and evaluate their success. It also helps the project managers and other staff members associated with the project to get a clear picture of key objectives and ensure the project is on the right track.
It is important to involve project managers, evaluators, donors, and other stakeholders in the designing of the M&E plan, as stakeholder involvement in the early phase ensures the applicability and sustainability of M&E activities. The idea is to identify opportunities and barriers as a team in the planning stage with a focus on problem-solving and maximizing impact.
Developing an M&E plan is a dynamic and multi-faceted process as it involves merging and connecting different elements of M&E into one holistic system to measure the performance of interventions and impact of a project. It is recommended to design the M&E work plan in a manner that it’s flexible so adjustments could be made anytime within the context of the work plan to account for issues that may arise during the M&E process.
Before we begin, it is essential to understand the rationale behind developing the M&E plan, the key elements that will be included and the steps required in developing it. Below, we have attempted to break down these elements into different steps for more clarity.
Before we conceptualise a project, it is essential to understand the underlying problem in the community of interest and explore what’s causing it, what interventions could solve this problem and how long would the intervention need to last for it to be effective. The project will thus be designed based on the need for a certain assumed intervention.
There are many strategic ways to identify the focal problem and its causes, but one common way organisations define these are through a ‘Problem Tree Analysis.’ This is a group activity that involves input from project team members, stakeholders and beneficiaries who can contribute relevant technical and local knowledge .
The first step is to define the main problem that all the team members mutually agree upon and visualise it on a flip-chart or a white board as the trunk of a tree. Next, through many rounds of discussions and dialogues, the team identifies the causes of the problem and visualises them as the roots of the tree. Finally, the team brainstorms on the potential consequences of the problem and exhibits them as the branches of the tree. Team members can also add additional branches for solutions, concerns and decisions.
This is an effective practice as it maps out a realistic picture of a problem from economic, political and socio-cultural dimensions, while building a shared sense of purpose, action and understanding amongst the involved parties.
Once we have fully grasped the underlying problem and mapped out its causes and consequences, we can begin to plan our project.
Identifying project goals, objectives and inputs/activities
Before we begin the groundwork of M&E plan, it is essential to understand where we need to go and how we are going to get there. This is possible by identifying clear and concise goals, objectives and relevant activities.
Identifying key players
This step involves identifying key internal and external stakeholders who will be involved in the project or who will benefit from the project. The key stakeholders include the project team, donors, stakeholders in the wider community (community groups, networks, residents etc.), partner organisations, local and national policy makers, other government bodies/ministries and the project beneficiaries.
Identifying monitoring and evaluation questions
In this step, program managers or M&E specialists with input from all stakeholders and donors identify the most important M&E questions the project will investigate. M&E questions, when answered will allow the managers to determine their internal capacity and processes in terms of vision, leadership, budget, management, sustainability etc. The M&E questions also allow the managers to gauge the relevance, effectiveness, impact and contributions of the interventions at different stages of the project life-cycle.
By identifying these questions early on in the process, project managers or M&E specialists are prepared to design tools, instruments, and methodologies required to gather the needed information. M&E questions may require revisions every now and then depending on the status of the project.
Roles and responsibilities
This is another important step to include while planning a project because defining the roles of project staff members and stakeholders early on will clarify who would be in charge of what activities, including communications, project management, project design and implementation, data collection, data analysis, reporting etc. and avoid unnecessary confusions later on during project implementation.
Cost estimates for the monitoring and evaluation activities
It is essential to allocate tentative budget and provide an explanation of the needed resources in the planning phase. This includes – money and personnel, capacity development, infrastructure, etc. M&E experts suggest allocating approximately 5 to 10 percent of total project costs for M&E programming.
Understanding the overall context
It is important to understand the political and administrative structures of the community where your project will take place, along with the roles and influences of existing policies that may affect project implementation. Likewise, it is also recommended to start thinking about the potential risks and unexpected circumstances that might arise during project implementation, for eg., any reluctance on the key players’ part for cooperation etc.
Once a clear picture of the overall goals and objectives of the project are defined, the key players are identified and the context is well understood, it is time to select an appropriate approach and sketch out the detailed design of the implementation plan.
By the time we reach this step, we should have sufficient background knowledge to design a framework. A framework increases understanding of the project’s goals and objectives and defines the relationships between factors key to implementation. A framework also articulates the external and internal elements that could affect the project’s success.
It is important to keep in mind that there is no one size fits all when it comes to frameworks. Different kinds of projects use different kinds of frameworks, the best way to determine your ideal type is by understanding the scope of your project and then choosing the one that best fits the purpose. These three types of M&E frameworks are widely used in the development and humanitarian sectors:
These three frameworks may have some differences in practice, but there are also some common elements that run through them, like the need for the identification and involvement of key stakeholders; the need for well-defined goals, objectives, activities and outputs, the same general purpose of describing how the project will lead to results and the need for ongoing monitoring and evaluation.
Check out our blog on Theory of Change vs. Logic Model to learn how they differ in terms of structure, approach, rationale and usage.
Once the program’s goals and objectives are defined and an outline of an M&E framework is in place, it is time to define indicators for tracking progress towards achieving those goals. A good mix of process , outcome and impact indicators is always recommended.
Process indicators track the progress of the project. These indicators help us get clarity on whether activities are being implemented as planned. On the other hand, outcome indicators track how successful program activities have been at achieving project objectives. Unlike process indicators, these indicators focus more on what the project is trying to achieve rather than how it is being achieved. Impact indicators measure the long term goals or impacts of a project.
Would you like to learn more about indicators? Click here.
After creating monitoring indicators, it is time to identify and collect relevant data to demonstrate the actual results of the project interventions against our indicators. M&E experts recommend to involve the project team and stakeholders in the discussion to make the process more participatory. Before collecting data, it is a good idea to discuss these questions as a team:
The golden rule to follow here is to collect fewer useful data properly than a lot of data poorly. It is important for project managers to take into consideration staff time and resource costs of data collection to see what is reasonable.
What is a good way to determine the most relevant source of monitoring data? This depends largely on what each indicator is trying to measure. The program will likely need multiple data sources to answer all the monitoring and evaluation questions. Data sources could be participants themselves, literature, national statistics, the whole community, individual homes or anyone or anything that can help to generate the relevant data. Once the appropriate sources have been selected, the next step would be to decide on the appropriate tools and methods to collect the data from the data source. Some common types of data collection methods are as follows:
Apart from the traditional pen and paper methods, there are many digital data collection tools available in the market to help data collectors gather data faster and more efficiently. These online or offline tools also help to avoid human errors that can arise during data collection and input. Some widely used data collection tools are KoBo Toolbox , CommCare , SurveyCTO , ONA etc.
Once the process of data collection is determined, it is also necessary to decide how frequently data will be collected. This will depend on the needs of the project, donor requirements, available resources, and the timeline of the intervention. Most data will be continuously gathered by the program, while others at certain intervals. Gathered data is usually recorded every few months, depending on the agreed upon timeline. Want to know how to prepare your dataset for analysis? Click here.