Plunge in at the deep end online version
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description
A guide to agile project management in intercultural youth projects with a focus on participatory strategies and confidence building by reference to ART OF DEMOCRACY – a project funded by Youth in Action
Transcript of Plunge in at the deep end online version
First edition 2015cc Die Bäckerei - Kulturbackstube
Content: Daniela RücknerLayout: Yvonne Neyer
Photos: Alberto Sanchez LopezPrint & Binding: studia Studentenförderungsgesellschaft mbh
Cover: Alberto Sanchez Lopez, Neyer Yvonne artwork by participants
A guide to agile project management in intercultural youth projects
with a focus on participatory strategies and confidence building
by reference to ART OF DEMOCRACY - a project funded by Youth in Action
Your journey ..................................................................................................................09A guide to project managment..............................................................................13Introducing „Art of Democracy ” - A youth in action project .......................................................................................17
Coming up with an idea .......................................................................................... 23Evaluating benefits and risks ..................................................................................29Proposal - how to get support ...............................................................................35 » Supporting organisation .....................................................................35 » The proposal ............................................................................................36
Team ................................................................................................................................43 » Project team and supporting organisation ...................................................43 » Partners .....................................................................................................46 » Participants ..............................................................................................47 » Volunteers ................................................................................................48
Project plan ..................................................................................................................51 » Objectives ................................................................................................53 » Participants and participating parties ...........................................54 » Supporting and hosting organisation .........................54 » Core team ...............................................................................55 » Partner organisations .........................................................55 » Participants ............................................................................57 » Milestones, Tasks and Deliverables .................................................58 » Project Schedule and Deadlines ......................................................59 » Finance and resource management – budget ...........................60 » Project communication ......................................................................65 » Management of risks and change ..................................................67 » Evaluation management ...................................................................69
ContentsINTRODUCTION
STAGE 1CONCEPTUALISE & INITIATE THE PROJECT
STAGE 2PLANNING & SETTING UP THE PROJECT
Distribution of tasks and responsabilities ..........................................................77Hosting and facilitation ............................................................................................81 »Booking arrangements ..........................................................................81 »Final schedule ...........................................................................................83 »Arrangement of accomodation & fare .............................................85 »Information material for participants ...............................................86 »Documentation ........................................................................................87
Implementation of meetings ..................................................................................89 Phase 1: Participatory workshop ..........................................................89 Expert input ...............................................................................90 Group work .................................................................................91Tracing and re-planning ...........................................................................................95 Phase 2: Activity weeks ...........................................................................97 Artistic workshops ...................................................................97Celebration & free time ..........................................................................................103Evaluation & impact .................................................................................................105 Participant feedback ..............................................................................105 Impact .........................................................................................................109
Closing the project ...................................................................................................123
Contacts & acknowledgements............................................................................123
STAGE 3 & 4WORKING ON THE PROJECT
TRACKING THE PROJECT&REPEAT
Stage 5CLOSING THE PROJECT
CONTACTS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
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This guide in front of you is one result of the Youth Democracy Pro-ject Art of Democracy, which was organised and implemented between September 2013 and February 2015 in Innsbruck by associates of the cultural organisation Die Bäckerei – Kulturbackstube. Its aim is to be of assistance to individuals, groups, associations and or-ganisations that are planing youth projects within a cultural and politi-cal context, intending to utilize artistic tools and methods. However, its intention is not to redundantly repeat and reproduce ge-neral information regarding formal project management - as such are already easily accessible and widely spread - but to address how one can handle the challenges that come with implementing a project including cultural and/or artistic objectives by reference to a concrete undertaking.
You, the reader, will find that the structure of the guide at hand is similar to that of a travel guide. The thoughts and considerations that let to this make-up are referring to principles of agile project management and to the experiences the authors were able to collect in terms of pro-ject management as well as to the aspect of user-friendliness, hopefully enabling readers to intuitively handle these pages. An essential aspect of travel guides, that we found to relate to manage-ment in and of cultural and artistic projects, is the suggesting or propo-sing – not dictating or standardizing – character of such books.It is obviously not possible to include all informations on all variations of how a | your project could go down and we also feel that there are more than enough generalising as well as specialising manuals | tool-kits that offer overviews, descriptions, recitals of tools, methods and methodology. So what we are going to do in this guide is to show you the routes we‘ve taken – within an agile project management frame -
YOUR JOURNEY
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So what we suggest is for you to see managing your project as a jour-ney – of course you want to have a solid plan and the adequate know-ledge about what you‘re getting into but you still want to be able and agile enough to react to changing circumstances or new information you may gain on site. The outcome of your project is the destination of your journey – but while a finalized product, that meets the exact needs and aims set in the beginning, often is of grave importance to project management in a group that develops an output for a company and/or its business partner, it is as such less decisive to a project in the realm of youth-work, where you might also, or even more, profit from a change of route or de-
and how they turned out for us as well as to offer you intelligence on where you can easily access further and general information, through links and contacts given in the orange info-boxes next to the main texts and in the index.
This way we hope you can easily find the specific tools, methods or data suiting your own intrinsic endeavours. Another facet of travel guides that we adopted is their handy and lucid format while at the same time they‘re offering a proportionally big amount of information.
image: example of an info box
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stination, because your vital objectives might revolve around gaining knowledge, skills and experience, around confidence and conscious-ness building or team- and group dynamics.Therefore you should keep in mind the saying “It‘s not about destinati-on, it‘s about the journey” does actually apply to the execution of par-ticipatory projects in the cultural and artistic sector – with a process-oriented approach - as well as it does to traveling.
Last but not least we advise you to take a good look on who you are taking this journey with – you might have a sensible choice to make or you might be presented with a given project group that you are part of and that you want to include into your planing process as factors and as input-givers on every step of your travels.
“It‘s not about destination, it‘s about the journey”
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The outline of this guide is based on the five identifiable steps of the journey that is project management:
(1) conceptualising and initiating the project (2) planing and setting up the project(3) working on the project (implementation)(4) tracking the project (5) closing the project.
While classic project management follows the waterfall model in which progress is seen as flowing consequently in one direction through said stages of project management, most approaches to project manage-ment these days put an emphasis on agility, adaptability and responsi-veness. The essence of this modified takes on management is to gather feed-back from stakeholders parallel to the phase of implementation and to use this input to adapt and re-plan according to the gained knowledge. Basically and in reference to the steps named before, this means to im-plement the evaluation and tracking of the project while you are wor-king on it and to incorporate the intelligence derived from feedback (as reflected in the layout of this guide, where the steps (3) and (4) are inextricably bound into one chapter).
You might have to circle back and re-plan steps of the project but this will significantly add to its quality and help you to know and meet the needs of the people targeted. Initially cultivated by software de-velopers, this strategy is being successfully leveraged for project ma-
A GUIDE TO PROJECT MANAGMENT
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BOX
There are several possibilities to get help and additional informations on
non profit project management in general and European projects in
particular. Viable information can be found on the web and in libraries
and Erasmus+ is regularly offering training courses. The latter are usually partially specific to the requirements of Erasmus+ but also offer indepen-
dent skills, tools and knowlede on
the topic.
BOX
Links:
http://euda.eu/courses/planned_courses/
http://knowhownonprofit.org/
https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/tool/training-kit-on-project-management-t-kit-series.68/
http://web.udl.es/arees/ori/cat/udl/professorat/socrates/
survival_kit_2001.pdf
Look for national information websites or information services too, as here we only offer the informations given in English. Erasmus+ has national websites in all European countries.
INFORMATION!
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nagement in general, especially in areas of innovation and uncertainty – which applies to many undertakings in the realm of culture, art and youth work. Furthermore its input - and feedback - driven progression works in favour of efforts to promote participation/the participatory na-ture of such ventures. Therefore, over the course of this guide, you will learn how we imple-mented the model of agile project management by taking into account room for adjustments in our project plan and by introducing participa-tive approaches.
Don‘t recoil at the abundance of information or the idea of applying a structured model – you will realize that most steps are easily com-prehensible and to implement as they relate to common sense and traditional project realisation and furthermore that it is not necessary to follow every step and tick every box. The dimensions of your project and the size of your team are crucial factors that influence how detailed you will have to plan aspects like communication or schedules in the process – of course an extensive undertaking takes extensive preparation but if you have more travel companions the bigger workload can be better distributed. Our experiences and the context of our project formed this guide, therefore when you read it, keep your project in mind, reflect on the informations it gives you and prioritize what matters to your journey!
„ ...you will realize that most steps are easily comprehensible... ”
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You will receive a more detailed account of the origination and deve-lopment of Art of Democracy throughout this guide but here we want to point out its corner stones up front to give you an idea of the the project as a whole. The cultural organisation Die Bäckerei – Kulturbackstube in Innsbruck has been hosting European Volunteers and implementing pan-Euro-pean projects in the frame of Youth in Action (2007 – 2013) – the present program was updated 2014 under the Erasmus+ program- continually since 2012. Art of Democracy was the most extensive undertaking so far. Die Bäckerei serves as a multi-faceted event centre for concerts, exhibitions, workshops, lectures, general working space and research that is being used and adopted by individuals, groups and institutions for said purposes. As such its aim is to support local ventures while at the same time promoting international cooperations. The small team of employees that is responsible for the development and implementati-on of pan-European projects planed and organised Art of Democracy with the support of the whole organisation – the given infrastructure of the event centre and the financial assistance received made an un-dertaking of this dimension possible in the first place. The ambitious
INTRODUCING „ART OF DEMOCRACY ”
- A YOUTH IN ACTION PROJECT
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BOX
INFORMATION
!
TKI Tiroler Kultur Initiativen (Innsbruck, Austria): http://www.tki.at/home.html
JUFF (Innsbruck, Austria)https://www.tirol.gv.at/gesellschaft-soziales/juff/
IG KULTUR Österreich (Vienna, Austria):http://igkultur.at/
TABAKFABRIK (Linz, Austria):https://tabakfabrik-linz.at/
HCCF Healthy City Community Foundation(Banska Bystrica, Slovakia) :http://www.knzm.sk/
CENTRUM KOMUNITNEHO ORGANIZOVANIA (Banska Bystrica, Slovakia):http://www.cko.sk/
LA GUAJIRA (Almeria, Spain) :http://laguajiradealmeria.blogspot.co.at/
OFF LIMITS (Madrid, Spain):http://www.offlimits.es/
Die Bäckerei -Kulturbackstube (Innsbruck, Austria):
http://www.diebaeckerei.at/english-home.html
Youth in Action Homepage (Innsbruck, Austria):
http://www.diebaeckerei.at/erasmus/youth-democracy-project.html
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objective the team set for itself was to combine elements of political awareness and European citizenship in content with democratic and participatory formats and artistic tools as means of expression and a source of motivation - all in a project aiming to engage young people between the age of 15 and 30. The six partner organisations involved have their residences in Austria, Spain and Slovakia as do the partici-pants each of them sent to the project weeks 2014 in Innsbruck. As this venture was realised in the frame of the expired Youth in Ac-tion program, we refrained from going into details regarding its requi-rements and specifics, but instead offer contacts and basic information on the new program Erasmus+. However, we will make transparent the funding received, how the resources were deployed and additionally offer you pointers on how to successfully apply. Yet, this guide does not exclusively address projects that profit from European financial sup-port, but also to such that are carried out in a smaller framework or have to take care of their monetary needs themselves.
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STAGE 1CONCEPTUALIZING
AND INITIATING THE PROJECT
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The comprehensive project “Art of Democracy”, consisting of several phases, among them extensive preparation and evaluation, wasn‘t the first undertaking the organisers of Die Bäckerei ran within the frame of Youth in Action (now updated under ERASMUS+). The impulse that set this Youth Democracy project in motion and gave us the idea to create the guide at hand was given by a smaller seminar project, held in Innsbruck in 2013 titled: Urban Intervention for Social Inclusion. The core objective of the seminar was to facilitate an intense theoretical and practical workshop, where skilled and motivated young agents have room to dedicate themselves and their work to an issue.
This format as well as the topics dealt with were thought of and chosen in accordance with the program-foci the organisation had set for the same year: low-threshold and barrier-free cultural mediation, artistic exchange, interdisciplinary networking and sustainable social entrepre-neurship. In July 2013, after a long period of preparation, more than 20 socially and artistically committed participants from seven different countries met in Innsbruck to focus on topics regarding inclusion and social awareness for all of one week. They held and participated in seve-ral workshops, sharing their insights on urban intervention techniques and awareness-building and exchanging experiences, skills and know-ledge on a theoretical as well as a practical basis.
COMING UP WITH AN IDEA
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The week ended with a public performance in the centre of Innsbruck, orchestrated and performed by the participants themselves, addres-sing the central concept of social inclusion.
Though very satisfactory in its entirety this first venture made us aware of certain shortcomings and breakdowns that can be avoided prospec-tively through changes on the organisational level. We addressed these aspects in our succeeding project:
GROUP SIZE
Being a big group had its advantages, but decision-making proces-ses take up more time and it is more difficult to “hear” all participants equally.
TIME FRAME:
the small time frame motivated the group to find their way quickly, but for an intense involvement with the participants can use more time to concentrate on either theoretical preparations or hands-on workage .
AGE/GROUP:
To have experienced participants who can share their skills and know-ledge is a GREAT QUALITY, but so is getting fresh input through younger participants who at the same time greatly profit from the offered expe-rience and advanced training.
EXTERNAL EXPERT INPUT:
A smaller group size and a bigger time frame make room to go into de-tail and for additional expert seminars and intensive group workshops.
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GROUP DYNAMICS:
The motivation and engagement of partners and participants can be risen through further involvement and a more open project character. This in turn can further strengthen the multiplication factor and the motivation of our partners and participants – this part turned out to be most demanding to fulfil, the challenges and hurdles will be reflected in the chapter about the execution of the project.
Both projects shared an interest in artistic and political expression, civil engagement, citizenship, confidence building and intervening actions, but the succeeding Art of Democracy did not put a focus on one specific socio-political theme to be covered by the participants, like “inclusion” was in our seminar project. Instead we tried to open up the process of project development through participative strategies and supported the participants in fin-ding a topic to tackle themselves through raising socio-political awa-reness and through encouraging joint investigation and discussions among them.
Respectively our basic idea came together out of our work subjects/fields of expertise within our organisation and our experiences with workshop weeks as they motivated us to develop a format that bet-ter answers the expectations of the participants. Considering that we intended to realise this project through partial funding from the Youth in Action program from the start, we had to make sure our concept complied with their program regulations in form and substantial focus points.
This might apply to you too or it will at least influence your decision on where you look for support - better check their profile first.Idea and objectives of a project are generally interlocked, so having no-tions about one might lead to conclusions about the other. Therefore if you don‘t yet have a topic or format or aim you are passionate about to start from, try to approach the question from different sides.
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BOX
INFORMATION
!
If you are starting the idea-finding process as a group, the techniques we offer in chapter 3
(p. 83) can be helpful to collect ideas and make decisions.
If you are already part of an organisation or have an organisation in mind, that you would like to
ask for support, factor in their orientation, goals and area of expertise. Otherwise you should look
for an organisation that has an interest in sup-porting exactly this undertaking. You find more
about receiving support from an organisation later in this chapter.
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Tackle an existing problem and/or fill an existing gap f. e. an inclusive event, a skate-park, more youth workers or available spaces or environmental concerns. A socio-political stimulus can be a great motivation to stakeholders and participants to engage.
Tackle a specific, maybe current topic f. e. EU citizenship, animal or environmental rights or local youth policy. Choosing the right topic and offering an education or closer insights on it, like f. e. forum theatre does, can create awareness and build the corner stone of further interests in the participants.
Aim for a certain group of people and their needsf. e. adolescents, youth workers or people with a disability. By working with or for a under-represented group, especially when you are not ac-tually a part of that group – say, because you are older or not a youth worker yourself - it is essential to investigate their needs and to include them in all planing processes from the start.
Aim to teach, utilize and disseminate specialised knowledge, tools or skills f. e. project management skills, knowledge about the Erasmus+ pro-gram or about urban gardening. Disseminating practicable and usable knowledge, tools and skills creates the best soil for further autonomous actions and new projects.
When you are clear about one of the aspects, take the other ones into consideration too in the light of your idea, it can further your concept - though that certainly doesn‘t mean they all need to be addressed and combined in one .Your basic idea stands when you can answer at least following questi-ons (not in detail) about your project:
What will happen? When will it happen?What is the central objective? Who will participate to what end?
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The evaluation of benefits and risks of a project happens in relation to the degree to which the project concept and plan have been set. At an early stage of the journey you can‘t yet speculate about all possible organisational breakdowns but you can evaluate your idea on basis of what you know the project asks for and what its supposed to give back. It can be of advantage to include other people in this deliberations, if you are not already in a team, try to get in contact with others who can share their experiences or simply their perspectives with you and might even be willing to attend a common brainstorming on the topic.
To get to conclusions you want to pick up the perspectives of the diffe-rent parties involved: the potential participants (including your team), the organisation whose support you want, the foundation or govern-mental department you ask for a grant or the local community – depen-ding on what you are intending to do – and evaluate possible positive and negative outcomes from each angle. To give some very simple and not at all comprehensive examples that would have met our project:
EVALUATING BENEFITS AND RISKS
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You will have to weigh the likelihood of a breakdown or of success. To have a team of people around you, often makes the evaluation and the solution finding come more naturally, especially if the group is made up by individuals who can represent different perspectives on the ven-ture. If you already have thoughts on how to handle or how to prevent problems, you should record them - depending on the extent of your project you might not need a structured table like this as long as you document your meetings and the conclusions and strategies you come up with when discussing risks and benefits.
At each point of your journey you could find yourself in a situation, that makes it impossible to keep exactly to your travel plans but as long as it does not have to lead to total stop or to your return, you might come out more flexible, a better team and profiting from the experi-ence. It also helps to be open and conscious with yourself and with the
party investment benefits risks strategy
team time, energy, work further motivation,
confidence,
autonomy, skills,
knowledge,
experience,
excange, a broader
network
demotivation,
disappointment
involve engaged experts,
reflect on and celebrate
steps, set goals and plan
tasks together, be open
about the project plan and
risks
supporting
organisation
time, work, money,
space
international
networks,cooperatio
n in a project
supported and
mainly funded by an
Europe-wide
program, gain in
competences among
the involved
employees, Good for
the reputation, good
press,
mainly financial:
Loss of time, work,
space and money
per se ,
underrepresenation,
objectives haven't
satisfyingly been
met for the
organisation
open project planing: part
of the team of the
organisation is the team for
the project, Involvement of
the bigger team in main
decisions, the goals are set
together the risks are
openly known
participants time, energy, work,
participant share of
the travel costs
motivation,
confidence,
autonomy, skills,
knowledge,
experience abroad,
exchange and
connection with
people with similar
interests from other
countries – network,
multiplyinig effect
demotivation,
disappointment,
distribution of false
or incomplete
information,
loss of travel cost
share
involve engaged experts,
care for good facilitation,
balance input and hands-
on activities, give enough
time and spae, reflect on
and celebrate steps, set
goals and plan tasks
together, be open about
the project, leave room for
adjustments and
improvement should
something not work, react
on it
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involved people of the fact that failing doesn‘t necessarily mean failure. Should you find yourself in front of obstacles that you can‘t overcome – for now – or should you feel your project didn‘t come to a satisfying conclusion, step back and regroup. You need to be aware of the fact that, what you are investing, is what you are at risk to lose, but nobody can take away the experiences you‘ve made so far and no matter how you decide to go ahead - know that this happens to the best of us.Either you will start your project again from another angle or you will take the knowledge with you into your next venture. In terms of res-ponsibility towards the people who take part in the project, you might feel it‘s comfortable to practice an open form of project management – if everyone feels informed and included in decisions, it lessens the weight of the responsibility on the individual and turns moments of success into a group celebration. The principle of transparency also works in terms of financial respon-sibilities – in most cases you will receive money in from of a grant or a sponsoring. There are certain requirements hooked to grants, like the one we received through Youth In Action, but if your application is approved by them and you invest the money like you proposed, you won‘t lose any money you need. Even when you have to stop the pro-ject because of an unfortunate act of nature you will just have to pay back what you did not spend or the part of the grant that you didn‘t invest will simply not be paid out to you. Funding from the government is very safe, of course in projects like ours this means you can‘t make any money out of your project – maybe not even to compensate the team for its work. Private or commercial sponsoring shouldn‘t be attached to too many conditions either, otherwise you might want to look for a different sponsor. In any case it is advisable to transparently present your project and the risks involved to the parties and let them make an informed decision.
On a more holistic level you and your team might want to put some general thoughts to how you want to handle potential breakdowns and problems. Giving room to the possibility of unforeseen obstacles, maybe even calculating time and room for possible adjustments will not only improve your project but also influence the way you face
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problems. In later stages of the projects, when tasks have been dissemi-nated, this can be done in more detail in each group responsible for an area– f. e. in terms of accommodation and fare that could be: What are the alternatives if the accommodation is not up to everyone‘s needs? What do we do if one of the cooks gets sick?Thorough planing is essential, but that doesn‘t necessarily mean to have every last detail of your journey figured out. A lot of effort can be put in an exact plan, but in the end projects like this essentially depend on all the people involved, which means that not every aspect can be controlled but also that you will learn a lot about cooperation, commu-nication and team work. Unexpected positive developments are not rare and feedback should never be taken as an affront by you and your team but always as an useful and teachable input on any step of the way. Creative solutions are best found together.
"Creative solutions are best found together."
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When you‘re intending to do a project in the frame of Erasmus+ you can always turn to their information system online:
http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/index_en.htm
or to one of their Europe-wide national information services.
You can find the contact information of your national agency and local informa-tion agency here:
http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/tools/national-agencies/index_en.htm
BOX
INFORMATION
!
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SUPPORTING ORGANISATIONS
If you don‘t have an organisation or association in your back already, you want to look for one that already has a history of supporting enter-prises like yours or are addressing related concerns in their official agen-da. Start collecting informations on local interest groups and organisa-tions that promote social entrepreneurship and find out which foster projects and programs that substantially fit the profile of your proposal. So for example if you are looking to do a project on urban gardening with kids – search for existing urban gardening initiatives and look for youth organisations that are engaging environmental work. You will only need one organisation to be your main supporter, but any other group that you make a useful connection with can contribute as a partner. If you are applying for a grant that asks for partners, make sure that the ones you name satisfy their requirements.
We ourselves started our project already being a part of an organisation, that means we didn‘t chose the Bäckerei in accordance with our pro-ject, but started out in front of a certain contentual and methodological background. The active and practical work in and for Die Bäckerei - Kul-turbackstube has given us insight into the structure and implementa-tions of cultural mediation. Focussing on the communication between culture, art and society, the institutions mode of operation follows the
PROPOSAL : HOW TO GET SUPPORT
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principles of democratic participation. The core team consists of about ten people that work in different functions – Decisions are on basis of discussions and reflection in weekly meetings, where every voice is heard and counted equally. For almost five years now the Bäckerei has been hosting and promoting cultural endeavours of a wide range, spanning from participatory workshops, art classes, concerts, exhibi-tions, lectures, etc. We‘re aiming to advance the range of cooperation and project related work together with youngsters and young - within Die Bäckerei (as a low-threshold „save“ space) and further within their social surrounding. We profited from the experienced team, the spacey venture and its in-frastructure and the financial contribution the organisation was willing to make. To gain this support we had to introduce the project as far as outlined and get the approval for the assignment from the managing associates.
THE PROPOSAL
With the parameters of your project that you have established so far you can approach an organisation for support. Even if you started of as an individual, at this point, if you looked for exchange and feedback, you probably have already one or the other person, that is interested in contributing. A project proposal can be more convincing, when there‘s more than one engaged person presenting, but if you‘re already wor-king in a big team, don‘t bring all of them to a meeting, that would be overwhelming. When you are introducing your venture, clearly point out the advantages or benefits for the organisation whose support you want.
In our case proposing our project was an easy step to take, as we al-ready knew about our organisations positive attitude towards the idea of realising a bigger Youth-In-Action project. We were a core team of three then and together we gave a presentation of our deliberations and plans as far as we were clear about them. We got the go to start with the more extensive work and had he first feedback on format and
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content, which we were able to take into the subsequent planing of the project. The organisations team received regular updates at the official meetings, but in the end the practical implementation really involved all Bäckerei employees somehow and that is were the exchange hap-pened – the organisation fulfilled its support function on all levels: we were granted a lot of space and time, as well as human resources and it even covered part of the actual costs, as Youth In Action or Erasmus+ asks you to find your own funds for part of the grant you receive.
Our first proposal within our organisation looked something like:
We want to apply with this project for a Youth-In-Action grant in the Youth Democracy program - should we receive it, we will need the support of this organisation in many ways. In accordance with the Bäckereis general ori-entation and objectives, its focus is on closely exploring the relations bet-ween artistic expression and tools, participatory actions and citizenship in a democratic system. What role befits art and the artist in the democratic system? How can art be utilised as a tool to promote motivation and as a means of expression and communication? - Are central questions we want to ask ourselves. The main objective is to enable the young participants to voice their views and to give them the skills and the experience to feel confi-dent taking actions themselves. Therefore we want to combine small groups, generous time frames and intense workshops. This will bring a solid theoretical and practical found-ation, that enables the participants to implement a project of very small dimensions from beginning to end themselves, like f. e. a short performance in public space. The outcome will depend on the individual groups, we are aiming to give them room to develop their own idea and to give them a choice in tools and techniques This high-set goal we want to reach by inclu-ding experts and professionals out of different areas, by using the organisa-tions given space and infrastructure and by thoroughly evaluating our steps while we are taking them together. Our experiences we want to document in a manual or guide that combines general informations on project execu-tion in a non-profit frame and specific examples from our project. We‘ll be looking for partners in Spain and Slovakia, who will be invited to participate in workshops and seminars here in Innsbruck. The benefits for the Bäckerei are a gain in experiences, skills, knowledge and positive image
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and an expansion of its pan-European network. For the project‘s implemen-tation we will need the organisation‘s infrastructure and space as well as the support of the associates. The restrictions of the grant we apply for won‘t allows us to pay rent for the organisations own venue or the full amount of working hours of the supporting staff. The budget needed will be signifi-cant and while we hope to receive most of the funding through the Youth in Action program, there will still be the need for an additional sponsor and maybe even for supplementary monetary support from the Bäckerei.
If you‘re starting from zero, some research is unavoidable should you aim to find an organisation that is interested in supporting your ven-ture, maybe you find one with the same idealistic goals you might have or one that could profit from or is aiming for an international network, or one that has reason to support your educational efforts or has an interest in your core topic.
There are lots of possibilities to gain the support of an organisation in your back – turn to local groups that are invested in project work or ask for informations at the local cultural department if you don‘t know yet what you are looking for. If you intend to do a project in the frame of Erasmus+ you can always turn to their information services (see infobox, p. 33) as well as to their website or hotline.
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STAGE 2PLANNING
& SETTING UPTHE PROJECT
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PROJECT TEAM & SUPPORTING ORGANISATION
The core team that developed and implemented Art of Democracy consisted of three Bäckerei-employees who already had previous expe-rience organising and/or participating in Youth in Action projects. The undertaking really could only be successfully implemented through the commitment of the organisations whole team but to ensure a sub-stantive project plan and concept as well as the needed level of orga-nisation to coordinate participants from different countries, the three responsible associates were dispensed of part of their daily duties to invest their time and energy into the realisation.The organisational and administrative expenses shouldn‘t be undere-stimated, in terms of the coordination of team, organisation, partners and participants in general but especially beforehand and during the implementation of international meetings.
If you already started your idea in a group you probably already have your team or a part of it, if you are looking for people to involve, search in the surroundings of your support- and or partner organisations or associations. If you are looking to realise your project within the frame of Erasmus+ you can also address their local information centre for con-tacts or give out an open call for motivated individuals.
TEAM
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BOX
INFORMATION
!
TKI Tiroler Kultur Initiativen (Innsbruck, Austria): http://www.tki.at/home.html
JUFF (Innsbruck, Austria)https://www.tirol.gv.at/gesellschaft-soziales/juff/
IG KULTUR Österreich (Vienna, Austria):http://igkultur.at/
TABAKFABRIK (Linz, Austria):https://tabakfabrik-linz.at/
HCCF Healthy City Community Foundation(Banska Bystrica, Slovakia) :http://www.knzm.sk/
CENTRUM KOMUNITNEHO ORGANIZOVANIA (Banska Bystrica, Slovakia):http://www.cko.sk/
LA GUAJIRA (Almeria, Spain) :http://laguajiradealmeria.blogspot.co.at/
OFF LIMITS (Madrid, Spain):http://www.offlimits.es/
Die Bäckerei -Kulturbackstube (Innsbruck, Austria):
http://www.diebaeckerei.at/english-home.html
Youth in Action Homepage (Innsbruck, Austria):
http://www.diebaeckerei.at/erasmus/youth-democracy-project.html
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The size of your core team will depend on the extent of your project and on the time that its execution will take up from the involved. You will share your journey with this people and should therefore intend to find motivated people with an interest in the topic, ideally they contri-bute through expertise or experience in one area of project manage-ment, yet their engagement is much more decisive. If your team didn‘t come together organically you make the project as transparent as possible to them, take their input and feedback into common consideration and really invite them to work with you as full team members. Making decisions in a group and planing actions can be challenging, nevertheless collaborative action and responsibility will strengthen the project and add to its soundness.The dissemination of tasks therefore should also be a group effort – of course relating to the individuals qualities and strengths but also re-garding the area they feel most interested in and where they want to develop further skills in. The more detailed your project plan gets, the more tasks there will be to manage, therefore start ascribing depart-ments and competences together and try to evaluate how much time will be taken up by one area. For example one department is responsible for applications, proposals and bureaucratic requirements, one for email communication and pu-blic relations, one for the coordination of schedules between organi-sation, experts and participants, etc. It can be advisable to share tasks in smaller groups of two or three and if people are involved in more aspects of the project at the same time it serves the exchange and the holistic perspective.
» » » » » For more detailed examples see chapter 3!
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PARTNERS
Our eight partner organisations were from Slovakia, Spain and Austria – With some of them we had successfully worked together in previ-ous projects, the others we found through our networks. We chose the ones we proposed partnership to according to their profile and with an aim for a certain diversity of orientations and foci between the orga-nisations. They were complimentary to each other and to the projects content and objectives.
The reasons to look for partner organisations are many, but they are almost indispensable in realizing pan-European projects – A contact organisation in the country or countries you want to cooperate with is essential and even a requirement if you apply for an Erasmus+ grant. You will have to decide what you want and/or need from your partner organisation and negotiate with them their commitment and invest-ment. In our case the main task they had to handle was to find and coordinate suitable participants from their countries who wanted to take part in the project weeks in Innsbruck. Of course it is possible that you will need more and further support from your partners – f. e. that they contribute by taking over a part of the participants travel costs, that they help disseminating informations or to obtain space should your project meetings not be confined to facilities local to you. In turn your proposal will have to invoke the be-nefits for the potential partners, f. e. In terms of public relations and image, and show that your concept is sound and compatible with their organisations philosophy. A partners agreement is not in every case obligatory but it can be very handy to have documentation to prevent or solve misunderstandings and to read up on the conditions if necessary. The benefits for the part-ners will in most cases refer to image and presence in the project com-munication but they also profit – if applicable - from the invitation of associates or people that are connected to an organisation and will re-turn with new skills, knowledge and input.
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PARTICIPANTS
Your concept will provide or propose a certain participant profile, may it be in terms of age, interests, country of residence, skills, or other as-pects that are decisive in relation to your project. This profile has to be communicated through the channels that you use to find the participants, so f. e. through partners, open calls, stakehol-ders, like minded associations, volunteer networks etc. to get the most out of your venture for all involved. Realising a Youth in Action project we were bound to the age band pre-determined by them (13 - 30) but felt that, in accordance to the topic, people starting at the age of 18 will profit the most from the meetings. (but lowered the age for the activities later on as a reaction to input given - See chapter 3, p. 95) We relied on our partner organisations to responsibly address and choose people that will benefit from the pro-ject and the other way round. This can of course lead to complications as the participants will receive their first informations second hand, so in our case we tried to obviate this by first inviting ambassadors from every organisation to our parti-cipatory workshop week, where we grappled with the ventures aims and tools and started discussing and pre-planing the guide. For the participants of the activity weeks there were no special skills or exper-tise asked from our participants, but it was essential to us that they are genuinely interested in the topic and motivated to engage themselves.It can‘t be stressed enough that the flow of information has to work, through the mediating partner organisations and directly through your organisation and team.
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VOLUNTEERS
The employment of volunteers is obviously not obligatory, but when it comes to the workload that accompanies hosting and facilitating pro-ject weeks they can be of substantial aid without being a burden to your – most likely concise – budget. As they agree to help you volunta-rily you should clarify which open tasks they want to be assigned to and if they maybe want to shadow the team of in other areas of the project management that they think could be informative to them. In return for their support you can also offer a certificate and you should include them in your celebration(s) during the project time. Our volunteers helped mainly with the board and the practical prepa-rations of our intercultural evening, but their tasks will depend on the requirements specific to your undertaking. Due to respective budgeting, we were even able to compensate them – though not in a noteworthy amount - for some of the work they did, although this is of course not the rule when working with volunteers. There are several possibilities where you might find dedicated people to volunteer for your project, often there is a local volunteer service that can help you connect, but you can also find them through sending out an open call yourself or by contacting associations and interest groups that might have an interest in your project and/or its issue.
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BOX
INFORMATION
!
If you want to work with volun-teers from abroad you will have
to ensure their travel and ac-commodation costs are covered and maybe come up with a little
pocket money.
Through local agencies and your own channels you might find vo-lunteers – scholars, students, etc.
- that are willing and motivated to work to gain experience and
who don‘t need you to come up with money for their stay.
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The project plan is the entirety of all plans that are active in yourproject. It will map and visualise the overall project schedule, its miles-tones and deadlines. It‘s aim is to describe the strategy that the team has set up to ensure the project scope can be delivered. Additionally to more precisely answering the questions named before: Why? What? Who? And When? (see p. 27) it should also contain all information about execution, management and control of the project that you have figu-red out. Should you apply for an Erasmus+ grant, like we did, you will have to complete their extensive application form and that means you will be served with a prepared structure in which you fill the details of your project plan. This form is at the same time the project charter to be confirmed by the national agency of the program. Most governmen-tal calls for project proposals will have you complete a document like this, therefore there is little chance that you overlook to give any essen-tial data in the projects plan– if you have a project sponsor apart from governmental funding, you should present them with the plan as – de-pending on your agreement - they might have to approve it. The fundamentals that should be covered by the documents of the project plan are the management of scope, requirements, schedule, finances, resources, communication, risk and change and evaluation. How extensive the deliberations in your project design are, is determi-ned by its scope and complexity and in many cases also by the sponsor of your project – if you are getting your funding from an non-govern-mental investor, you most likely won‘t have a ready-made form (except for some organisations, firms and institutions that pursue project sup-port on a regular basis), so in the following we would like to give a short
PROJECT PLAN
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Tabelle
1
Seite
1
Projektstart:01. 04. 2013
Projektende: 28. 02. 2015
Datum
: 01. 09. 2013
20132014
PhaseDeadline
Mai
JulyAugust
September
Novem
ber
Initiation
07.05.13
07.05.13
01.06.13
01.06.13
Team15.07.13
15.08.13
01.09.13
01.09.13
15.09.13
01.12.13
15.12.13
07.12.13
15.12.13
21.12.13
31.12.13
07.02.14
22.02.14
15
.03
.14
Projekttitel: Art of D
emocracy
Projektleitung: Alberto Sanchez Lopez, Daniela Rückner
JuneOctober
Decem
berJanuary
FebruaryMarch
Concept draft
Core team
Parameters (location, tim
e frame)
Proposal and Confirmation supporting organisation
project assignment
Planning and Set up
Partners: find, contact, agreements
Supporting sponsors
Final project plan
Submission for Youth in Action grant
submission proposal
proposal granted
Organisation and im
plementation m
eetings
Distribution of tasks and assignm
ents
Experts: find, contact, agreements
Booking venue, finalise time fram
e for the meetings
Finalize schedule participatory workshop
Communication partners – chosing participants
Booking accommodation, organising fare
Preparation participatory workshop
Participatory workshop 16. - 22. 02. 2014
participatory ws
Tra
cin
g a
nd
re-p
lan
nin
g
excerpt of project plan52
account in exeamples of the most important informations like we gave them (extracted from the pre-structured form and plan given by Youth in Action) and some basic intelligence on the definition an make up of each item.A project charter or project statement is a statement of the scope, ob-jectives and participants in a project. The charter itself is usually a short document but it will refer to the files in the project plan that offer de-tailed information. The collected and organised information will help you and others see the outlines and corners stones of your journey more clearly. As the objectives and the general scope of the project will be stated by now and you also know who the participating parties are, you should be able to come up with and account for these informa-tions in a structured way. In our undertaking the objectives presented themselves like this:
OBJECTIVES
Building confidence and consciousness in young European citizens, through offering the opportunity to acquire skills, knowledge and tools related to project management while facilitating a participatory ap-proach. The experience and its documentation will be taken down in a comprehensive and structured guide specific to non-profit project management.
»To improve and expand knowledge, images and competencies in de-mocracy and democratic life to enable people to think critical and par-ticipate actively in their society.
»To introduce art as a tool that enables people to express their critique and their political views.
»To share and discover the opportunities of democratic participation trough artistic expressions .
»To demonstrate the participants the severity of their role in public and political life .
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»To give organisations, young people and experts a platform to discuss and explore the connection between art an democracy .
»Create and publish a valuable and knowledgable guide.
»To have the participants implement a project with maximum autono-my possible within the project frame.
PARTICIPANTS/PARTICIPATING PARTIES
The participants to be named here are all parties that are involved in a projects‘ implementation. Essentially the stakeholders which include the team, the partners, the sponsors and the workshop participants. Should you involve external experts and professionals you can also ac-count for them here. In your project plan you want to describe the team and its expertise, your supporting organisations and the partners pro-files, the sponsors and the scope of their support and the participants like the project depicts them, as well as what is expected from them in the frame of the project. As Art of Democracy was very extensive and we worked with a number of partner organisations, experts and suppor-ters, we won‘t offer the complete information but an exemplary excerpt in the following.
SUPPORTING AND HOSTING ORGANISATION
Die Bäckerei – Kulturbackstube
Die Bäckerei - Kulturbackstube is a place where diverse cultural events (exhibitions, concerts, workshops, art classes for youngsters and seni-ors, ....) are hosted with the objective to reach manifold interest- and age-groups and to promote networking and exchange amongst them. Through offering low-threshold access to space, infrastructure and per-sonal support the organisation aims to generate social and cultural in-put and moreover improve social solidarity in community live. The Bäckerei promotes workshops, events and networking for and by
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young people, hereby providing positive perspectives and room for them to discover their part in society.As the main promoter of the project the Bäckerei associates will pre-pare the basic structure and laying the groundwork for it, mediate the communication between the partner organisations, offer space for the planned activities and accompany the work groups in all steps. The organisations team will also take care of the rework afterwards, of analyzing the outcomes and of publishing the final work.
CORE TEAM
Alberto Sanchez Lopez, Daniela Rückner, Julia Scherzer
The core project teams consists of three employees of the Bäckerei assigned to the implementation of Art of Democracy. The active and practical work in and for Die Bäckerei - Kulturbackstube has given the organisers insight into the structure and implementations of cultural mediation. Focussing on the communication between culture, art and society, the institutions mode of operation follows the principles of de-mocratic participation. Furthermore we were able to collect experiences specific to the Youth in Action Program during the 2013 completed Die Bäckerei - Seminar Project: Urban Intervention for Social Inclusion.
PARTNER ORGANISATIONS
Example profile of a partner organisation:
Partner organisation:TKI – Tyrolean Cultural Initiatives
TKI (founded in 1989) is both network and representative of free cultural initiatives in Tyrol. At the moment, it counts Tyrol - wide about 120 initiatives (cultural as-sociations, collective groups, work groups) among its members. The variety of the initiatives reflects the range of contemporary art in Tyrol.
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TKI is an independent and non-partisan institution, participating in pu-blic politico-cultural discourse and steadily pointing out the important long-term effect of free, non-profit cultural work. The TKI sees itself as platform for cultural initiatives laying special em-phasis on the support and production of contemporary experimental art and art forms, on the contribution to development of cultural varie-ty in Tyrol as well as on the support of social interaction and “civil-social” commitment of people living in Tyrol. TKI is also a service centre of ad-vice and link-up for people producing culture and as such a contact institution for all questions concerning cultural work. TKI will be one of the promoters/partners of the project. Its role will be that of a sending organization, participating in all the stages of the project. We will also take care of identifying 3 participants, supporting them to prepare acti-vities and travel arrangements (flight, insurance, etc.). Furthermore, TKI will, together with the participants,reflect on the results of the training and on the the knowledge and skills acquired as well as assist in the dissemination of the project guide.
Name of partner Country Role in the project
TKI - Tiroler Kulturinitiativen AT promoter
IG Kultur Österreich AT promoter
Tabakfabrik Linz Entwicklungs- und Betriebsgesellschaft mbH
AT promoter
Amt der Tiroler Landessregierung, Abteilung JUFF/ Fachbereich Jugend
AT promoter
Asociación sociocultural La Guajira ES promoter
OFF LIMITS (Asociación Cultural Maelström) ES promoter
Centrum komunitneho organizovania SK promoter
Healthy City Community Foundation SK promoter
TOTAL number of partners 8
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PARTICIPANTS
Participatory workshop: Age frame: 18 – open. The participatory work-shop aims to facilitate exchange between the partner organisations therefore we invited them so each send an associate as an ambassador. The diversity of our partner organisations will provide valuable perspec-tives on the project and the guide we want to write and publish. We ask them to participate in the workshop week and provide us with their input and feedback on the project Activity weeks: Age frame: 15 – 30. (originally 18 - 30, see p. 93) During the activity weeks we will implement a project together with the parti-cipants and with the help of art and project professionals. The require-ments the participants have to fulfil besides conforming with the age frame, are an interest in art and political education and the participati-on in one of the activity weeks.
BOX
INFORMATION
!
Requirements are capabilities to which a project outcome should conform – they are effectively objectives that have to be
met by the projects end. Requirements tend to change through the course of a project, with the result that the product
as delivered may not adhere to the available re-quirements. Requirements are f. e. compliance with the budget or the facilitation of a project
with pan-European participants. Project scope is the part of project planning that involves determining and documenting specific project goals, deliverables, tasks and
deadlines. It covers the work that needs to be accomplished to deliver the result with the
specified features and functions.
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MILESTONES | TASKS & DELIVERABLES
A milestone is a measurement of progress toward an output whereas the deliverable is the result of the process. So a milestone is for example the completion of the project plan itself while the deliverable going with it are the collected and presentable documents that make up the project plan and the tasks are what get you there. For better comprehensibility you find some examples below.
Milestone: Completion of project plan informationDeliverable: collected and structured documents for submission and presentation.Tasks attached: f. e. completion of concept, project schedule, budgeting.
Milestone: Endorsement of the project charter/plan by project sponsor.Deliverable: written agreement, project funding.Tasks attached: f. e. completed project plan.
Milestone: Execution of participatory workshop with stakeholders Deliverable: documentation of the participants input and the work shops outcome, strategies for project progressionTasks attached: f. e. Hosting and facilitation of the workshop,preparation and implementation of evaluation tools.
Milestone: Project closureDeliverable: Final report, documentation in pictures and documents, record of the participants feedbacks, conclusive and cu mulative evaluation of the project process, guide for pu blication.Tasks attached: Recording and Assessment of outcomes and feedback, Analysis of the evaluation data, Archiving of visual and audiovisual records, composing of the guid
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PROJECT SCHEDULE & DEADLINE
The schedule of your project should include the projects milestones, activities and deliverables with intended start and finish dates.Again, depending on the complexity and the extent of your project, your schedule and the form in which you present it, have to be more or less sophisticated. If you have a small team and an easily overseeab-le number of tasks, you might be able to include assignment informa-tions in the document, if the dimensions are bigger you might think of compiling separate calenders for the assigned groups. A digital calen-dar that is accessible for all associates and where data can be added any time can be very handy and its flexibility qualifies it especially for projects that are prone to change. Still you will want an actual paper that gives an overview of the projects timeline for your documenta-tion, presentations, submissions, control and evaluation. The schedule is supposed to serve you as a means of organisation and to evaluate project performance, but it is as well essential for all purposes where a comprehensive description of your project is in order. Significant chan-ges should be credited and marked and archived as well during the progression of the venture.If the form in which you record your schedule is not predefined, you can chose one that suits your project needs best and that you and your team feel is lucid and understandable. May it be just in wording, as a table and/or with graphics. The essential informations your project schedule and timeline should reflect are:
the start, durance and end of your project as this is the frame for your project schedule and the ultimate deadline for all assignments relating to the project execution from planing start to final closure.
In our application for the Youth In Action grant we had to provide st-arting and end date as well as the project durance in days. Milestones: the dates when essential steps in your journey have been completed or intermediate goals have been achieved as well as the deliverables expected at this point. It makes sense to mark the starting and ending of the necessarily attached tasks and the assigned team.
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FINANCE & RESOURCE MANAGMENT - BUDGET
Submitting or proposing your project for any kind of funding or spon-soring means you will have to present a coherent budget calculation. While you might be clear about some of the overhead costs early in the planing, like rent or professional fees, there will be others where you have to give an sophisticated estimation, like the exact travel expenses of all participants. It is helpful to be able to resort to the knowledge of people who have experience with budgeting, f. e. the accounting de-partment of your supporting organisation, but even if you don‘t have this opportunity, there are plenty informations and examples on reliab-le websites for project planing and governmental funding about which categories and items to list – don‘t recoil at this part of the planing. For a non-commercial project you won‘t need sophisticated accounting but a simple account of expenses and income (namely sponsoring, grants, donations). The form that we hat to complete to submit Art of Demo-cracy for a Youth In Action grant already included a ready-made form and therefore made it easy for us to take all items into consideration, but formally it equals a simple budgeting table. To give our own example we transferred the informations we were asked to give:
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Estimated costs:
Rental costs (room and equipment)
Equipment (Beamer, camera, etc.)/10 days 500 EUR
Seminar & Workshop room/20 days 2000 EUR
Total 2500 EUR
Interpreting costs
interpreting 0 EUR
Total 0 EUR
Publication/translation/information costs
Publication and Flyers 500 EUR
Prints and copies 50 EUR
Proof reading Guide and Information material 300 EUR
Total 850 EUR
Dissemination and exploitation of results
Publication Guide (production, print, publication) 3500 EUR
Total 3500 EUR
Direct/other costs
Materials (artistic and office supplies) 500 EUR
Experts fees 1000 EUR
Seminar Trainer 1000 EUR
Total 2500 EUR
Indirect/other costs
other costs 0 EUR
Total 0 EUR
Travel costs
travel costs 4950 EUR
Accomodation and food: 15616 EUR
Total 20566
Total costs: 29916 EUR
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Budget planing and resource management are to be handled with spe-cial care as you will not only be responsible to economize on the availa-ble funds and resources to make your project happen but also have a responsibility towards your funding agency. Additionally to accounting for all money spent through invoices and fee notes, you will have to justify changes in your budget planing du-ring the project progression, most likely even have to get them appro-ved first if the sum that is to be rededicated is a significant one.
Only in the rarest cases it is possible to up the funding or sponsoring as a whole after once approved, so it is essential that you calculate sensib-ly from the start and not realise too late that you will run out of money before the project is closed. If you can‘t get a narrow estimate on an asset you will be better off declaring the maximum costs, keeping in mind that you will have to return the money you didn‘t need or haven‘t spent like you stated without clearance. Another fact that speaks for this is that – depending on where you apply – you might not receive the whole sum you‘ve asked for anyway and have to go on either fin-ding supplementary sponsors or find a way to dial back on expenses.
Items like human resources, space and infrastructure that you might receive as support from your organisation should be accounted for in numbers but they will have to be qualified as sponsoring (income) if your project doesn‘t actually have to reimburse the costs. At the time that we implemented Art of Democracy the program didn‘t allow ap-plying organisations or association to charge anything for the rent of their own venture or the personnel resources they provided. This has in part change with the updated program in the frame of Erasmus+.
Estimated income:
EU Grant - 70 % of 29916 20941,2 EUR
Own ressources 1000 EUR
Private donors/sponsors 2000 EUR
Co-financing budget 5974, 8 EUR
Total: 29916 EUR
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When you are closing your project you will have to justify spending your budget presenting all the invoices and fee notes – they have to be dated within the time frame of the project – which should be in general accordance with the planed and pre-presented estimated budget.
INFORMATIONBOX! Grant seeking:
http://www.nonprofitworks.com/downloads/
Erasmus+ grant:
https://erasmusplus.org.uk/erasmus-grants (english version)
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PROJECT COMMUNICATION
The channels of communication during a project are manifold: Bet-ween you and other organisations, with sponsors or funding agencies and with participants but also with media and public. Internal commu-nication involves interactions between team members and the com-munication of information to project associates. The biggest challenge is its coordination and documentation, as it happens through different lines and in all departments of the venture – it‘s very unlikely that there will be only one person in charge of all communications management, though f. e. the team assigned to public relations will be responsible for a big part of the external communications management or the group can agree on certain communication directives and strategies, internal and external, like who is communicating what, which information has to be directed to who, which channels will be used to communicate your project to the public, when is an information supposed to com-municated, who has to be in the cc of which emails, etc. The bigger your undertaking, the more thought you will have to put in the strate-gic management and the control of communications. When you are communicating your project to the outside you want to control the informations going out as far as possible. Your public rela-tions team will have to set dates for press releases, maybe arrange in-terviews or provide further material on request, create and regularly up-date your web presence (it might not be obligatory but it is advisable to communicate your project online in some way), see that your sponsor or funding agency is visible communicated as such, possibly produce informative material like flyers or posters, make sure that recognisability of the project is given through coherent layouts and informations – to name just a few tasks. In terms of internal communication it is essential that everyone in the team is aware of the assignments and responsibilities of the other as-sociates to be able to forward and distribute information accordingly. You might want to lay down the rules together in terms of the lines and channels of communication up front and maybe – especially if your team is extensive - even assign someone to send out a regular newsletter with updates on the project progress to all associates, so
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INFORMATION
!
Get separate email addresses for press, participants and partners, sponsors and general requests – it makes the coor-dination of the email communication easier to oversee and requests can be forwarded right to the responsible per-sons address.
Comprehensively document and|or record your communication with partners, sponsors and agencies so that misunderstandings are avoided and the course of the communication is tracea-ble if questions appear.
BOX
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that there always is a common level of information. Moreover it can be of advantage, even necessary, to lay down some rules on personal communication on the project in the team. Depending on how your team is structured – more hierarchical or more equal – discussions and decisions will take on different shapes and turn out different ways. Ide-ally you work on your rules for internal communication together: What do we want respectful and effective discussions to look like? What are no-go‘s in the communication between team members? How do we prevent communicational breakdowns? How do we approach the pro-blems should they appear in the process? Functioning communication in a group can be a challenge but elements and tools of team-building can be applied to further it. (see chapter 3, p. 83)
MANAGEMENT OF RISKS & CHANGE
In chapter 1 of this guide we already gave you some input on how to evaluate the risks of your project for the involved parties and on how these risks can be approached. Breakdowns or failures that are more likely to come up and that constitute significant problems for the pro-gression of the project should be prioritized. Together with your team you can develop strategies up front to prevent them or to handle them if they do occur. At this state of your planing you will have got a more concrete idea of all the risks involved and subsequently the teams dealing with their assignments can concentrate on managing the ones that are attached to their tasks. If the control mechanisms – holding regular team meetings, transparency of tasks and planing, evaluation of the project progress, reference to milestones and deadlines – work, you most likely will be able to react early f. e. by re-planing steps, rededica-ting resources or re-defining objectives.Within the frame of an agile project management approach change is seen as a part of the project progression. Repeated evaluation and tracing of the ventures current state, followed by updates or even re-design of structures, schedules and tasks are implemented and com-municated from the start. It is essential that all involved parties are awa-re of this take and accept it as a part of the project plan.
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As governmental funding is usually subject to strict rules in form and planning, like in the case of Art of Democracy, we decided to plan and schedule room for feedback and change in our project design. Howe-ver, the degree of change is determining. While a change in the work-shop schedule or venue might be easy to facilitate and communicate, a change of scope or objectives is much more demanding in terms of or-ganisation and distribution of intelligence and might – like a significant change in the budget or timeline – have to be approved by the other invested partners and sponsors first. Governmental funding agencies - like Youth in Action – demand that a change form is submitted and permitted by them before the change is actually implemented. There-fore you should know exactly what the requirements for adjustments are and try to accommodate and foresee likely changes in your project design. You will read more on the practical implementation of changes in chapter 3.
EVALUATION MANAGMENT
Like it was mentioned in this guide before, evaluation should not be limited to the closure of a project. Consequent tracing and evaluative consideration is an essential part of an agile project plan and needs to be scheduled from the start. In the minority of cases this will lead to turning the project on its head completely – and if it should, it might be a necessity and it‘s only to your advantage to consider it – but ena-ble the team to react in time to complications and new findings. Fur-thermore the insights you will gain through repeated inquiry regarding the developments in the ongoing project will be of help in any future undertakings that go in a similar direction. If your team grapples with monitoring and assessment together, it will not only help your group dynamics along but also lead to a more accurate and extensive view on the project among its members.
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INFORMATION
!
BOX
Project planing for non-profits in general:
https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/
http://knowhownonprofit.org/people/your-development/professional/projectman
http://www.crenyc.org/resources_tools
Evaluative tools:
http://www.nprcenter.org/evaluation-outcomes
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/manage-ment/the-right-tools-can-make-evaluation-less-painful-more-productive.html
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Again, a comprehensive record of the issues and outcomes of all evalu-ation meetings will result in expending additional effort, but the pros of such a documentation will outweigh the cons. There are plenty of tools that are suitable for evaluating a project like this and you will have to decide which tackles the areas that are of in-terest to you best and when to apply them. It is most important to give assessments enough room in your planning and to shape awareness of its necessity among the associate team members. Repeated assess-ments of the project performance can be made rather informally with your associates in every meeting - comparing the status with the sche-duled deadlines and milestones will already present you with valuable insights on complications and potential misplanning that you can act on in an early state. During weeks of participant gathering and activity it is advisable to perform a short evaluation of the present condition of the involved and of how they experience their participation in the project so far on a daily basis. This will give you an update on how your project plan is working out and if it meets the requirements of success-ful facilitation, hosting and team work. For a more formal collection of evaluation data and/or to a larger extent you might wanna resort to tools like questionnaires comprising of targeted and open questions for the participants, stakeholders and/or other involved groups if ap-plicable. Especially for the work with young people there are tools that are easy to handle and even bring an element of fun with them like the evaluation pizza (see chapter 3, p. 106) which might not be able to give you detailed data but still offer a sound picture of the state and valuable feedback for different areas of the venture.Last but not least the evaluation should not be restricted to the project implementation as such but also address issues of team work, communication and performance.
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STAGE 3&4WORKING ON THE
PROJECT TRACKING THE
PROJECT& REPEAT
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In the following we will give you an account of the execution of our project by reference to its main challenges and its structural and organi-sational tasks as we came across them. As no two projects have exactly the same requirements the aim can‘t be to offer a full depiction of the ones that will apply to your undertaking but the exemplary process and the organisational tips we provide will hopefully be of aid to you figu-ring out your way.
After our project plan for Art of Democracy was approved and the Youth In Action funding granted, we were able to start with the organisatio-nal preparations for the participatory workshop and the activity weeks. All partners were informed about the authorisation of the project and admonished to chose and prepare the participants they would send to the two meetings. The other participating parties were briefed as well and a short informative press release sent out to local and national me-dia through the network of the Bäckerei.
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DISTRIBUTION OF TASKS& RESPONSABILITIES
The core team held weekly meetings during the whole implemen-tation phase and regularly conferred with the other associates of the Bäckerei. While several questions and functions as well as all things con-tent were subject to collective efforts, in the area of practical organisati-on we felt it necessary to structure and manage the work load at hand and the given work capacities. Together we distributed competences as we saw fit, leading to the listing and further dissemination of smaller tasks within those responsibilities – as our central group was small and the assignments manifold, we enlisted the support of associates and volunteers for some of them in the proceeding of the project. Our central divisions were:The communication with partners, participants and supporting parties was handled by the same division who dealt with travel, accommo-dation and fare, aiming to have one informed contact person for any requests in that direction – and there were many of them. The people in charge also handled the collection of all bills, tickets and invoices in that regard during the progression of the project. We decided to do so - in contrast to having one responsible department for all project invoices from the start - as a result of the big number of participants and arran-gements to make. As the associates in this matter were already familiar with issues of accommodation and travel they had a better overview of the documents and receipts that were to be accounted for.The inquiries towards experts, facilitators and professionals who were to offer purposeful input to us and our participants were arranged by the ones also assigned to the booking of seminar– and workshop– rooms with the objective of guaranteeing the coherence of the schedules for the participatory workshop and the activity weeks.The public representation of the project and the visibility of its partners and supporting agencies as well as the maintenance of web presence and press communication were handled by one department which
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INFORMATION
!
BOX
If the objective you set for pro-ject up front is the destination of your journey, the way or strategy that gets there is the methodology, the means of transportation you use to get there are the tools and all short cuts or detours you might take or not take are the techniques.
Where do you want to end up? - Destination
What are the requirements to travel there? - Methodology
What are the means to travel there? - Tools
How or on which ways do you get there? - Techniques
» Goal-oriented project management is mainly about the destination
» Process-oriented project management is about the travel
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therefore took care of most text-related tasks and the organisation of coherent documentation in words and pictures. The organisation of and partially the work on the guide also fell in this remit.These are of course by far not all the tasks that were to be performed, like mentioned before, several assignments were tackled by all mem-bers of the core-team especially those in relation to the content, the methodology and the tools (see infobox, p. 78) of the project. While some of them were already subject of the planning process, as we presented it in the previous chapter, they stayed issues of team dis-cussion and any changes or decisions were thought through together. In a larger group the extent to which this can happen is in most cases lesser and the effort bigger, but it will only serve your project to seek out opportunities to get the input and feedback of the people and par-ties involved. Choices in terms of partners, facilitators and experts were the result of informed common examination and the guidelines as well as the first drafts of the schedules for the participator workshop and the activity weeks were created in an collective endeavour. During the weeks in which meetings were to be hosted and guests to be taken care of we showed presence as a team and approached practicalities and organisational challenges together. When we entered the phase of closure, the projects reflection, evaluation and assessment involved all team members.
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INFORMATIONBOX
Think of a party.A facilitator is like a party planner, or a wedding organizer, running around ta-king care of details, scripting the event and staying outside of the experience. A party host, by contrast, is inside the experience, invested in the outcome, bringing energy to conversations, not only form, and both affecting and being affected by the experience. The wedding planer enables the host to concentrate on and take part in the actual party.
!
HOSTING& FACILITATION
BOOKING ARRANGEMENTS VENUES | FACILITATION & EXPERTS
Before you can finalize your timetable(s) for the meetings you have to complete and confirm bookings and appointments that have to be scheduled. Depending on where your priorities and challenges in terms of the organisation lie, you will decide in which order to take care of the arrangements.
In terms of the venue(s) you will have to be clear about what the acti-vities require regarding time, space, infrastructure and features – this might mean to clear them with experts and professionals too. If you are involved in or supported by an organisation you will inquire first if and which possibilities there are to use their premises. The Bäckerei is seated in a three-storey building that is being rented and used by different associations and organisations but commanding the biggest part of it itself. Therefore we were able to use different seminar- and workshops rooms, suiting our different purposes, at one and the same venue and without having exuberant rental costs. If you can‘t draw on facilities in your projects support system, you will have to investigate other venues that are open to rent and are convenient for your usage. It is advisable to address city council or local cultural departments and ask for their
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assistance in finding suitable space, as might also be able to accommo-date a good rental price for a non-profit project, but even if not, there might be affordable community rooms available.
If you arrange for an external facilitator, you should be sure he/she is equipped to handle group and agenda to the given extent. Like men-tioned before team matters and the form of procedure can be a big challenge if you are involved in the activities yourself. A professional facilitator has experiences and tools that are specific to team-building and the facilitation of problem solving and discussion in such a frame. To make the often awkward phase of getting-to-know-each-other at the beginning of activity weeks go smoothly he/she can implement so called icebreakers, to start a slow session or to shape a motivating break there are energizers and team-building activities can promote theprogress of a group in all concerns. Should you think that sounds easy – it is not, especially if you are in the middle of the action yourself and want the group dynamic to be one between equals. If you are to step out of this group dynamic to introduce tools and games like mentioned or if you take control over an discussion that goes off course. In an ideal situation your facilitator is even versed in the contentual issues your dealing with, but in any case he/she will have to receive an comprehensive briefing from your team and all informations related to the implementation of the activities and sessions he/she is supposed to facilitate.
The latter also goes for the experts, professionals or lecturers your are inviting to give input. They should have an insight on the content and the general objectives of your project as well as the methodology you entertain - to avoid contradictions. On the other hand you also have to know about their intended presentations and lectures to decide if the theoretical or practical intelligence provided are of matter and are best offered by an external professional. It is your task to find people who are qualified to give you and your participants significant input and to do this in a fashion suitable to the requirements and needs of a mixed group. If you are hosting an international or pan-European venture you have to see to that they are able to communicate information com-prehensively in the stipulated project language. The accommodation
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of schedules can constitute another challenge, to prevent problems at a later point in time it is advisable to introduce the drafted timetable from the start. While smaller changes can often be accommodated, you would not want to realise that the schedules don‘t pair up after you already started negotiating terms and content. Last but not least you need to clarify with your invited professionals any special equipment and the requirements of the space they need as well as if there are pre-paratory tasks or materials to be communicated to the participants.
FINAL SCHEDULE
The final timetables for the meetings that you will give out to your sup-porting organisations and the participants should include the basic infor-mations on dates, venues, start- and end times as well as information on workshops, lectures and activities with short descriptions and scheduled breaks and celebrations. You might have a slightly more extensive sche-dule with additional intelligence for the associates in the project,maybe also for the supporting organisation and staff, but you shouldn‘t over-whelm the participants with too much detailed information. On the next page you find the timetable of our participatory workshop as an example.
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INFORMATIONBOX! Team-building tools:
http://www.yia.hu/admin/uploads/YouthAndTheCity.pdfhttp://www.thenonprofitpartnership.org/files/
buildinghealthyteams.pdfhttp://managementhelp.org/groups/team-building.htm
Training kit essentials:https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/tool/training-kit-on-training-essentials-t-kit-series.71/
https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/
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Art of Democracy – Artistic Expression for Democratic Participation1st Phase: Sunday, February 16th to Saturday, February 22nd
Day & Time Activities & Content Theoretical input/workshop by
February 16th
18:00 – 20:00 ArrivalCasual meeting
February 17th
09:30 – 12:39 Getting-to-know-activitiesPracticalities/OrganisationPresentation of the project's topic and intentionGetting-to-know the involved organisations
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch & recreation
14:00 – 18:00 Getting-to-know the BäckereiTeam-building & first exchange
Bäckerei-Tour led by co-founder
18:00 City tour Innsbruck
19:00 Dinner and evening program
February 18th
09:30 – 12:30 Thematic Introduction by an expert into: democracy, democratic processes and participation
Introduction by facilitator and participation expert
12:30 Lunch & recreation
14:00 – 18:30 Input on the theoretical foundation of participation and civic involvement (Basics and Examples)
Introduction by local politicians in cultural work and participation
19:00 Dinner and mid-week evaluationoptional concert at the Bäckerei
February 19th
09:30 – 12:30 Theoretical input on Art and Democracy (relations, connections, examples)Artistic and Cultural projects in light of Democratic
Introduction by the manager of the local artist-in-residence-program
12:30 Lunch
14:00 – 18:00 Spare time, preparations for intercultural evening Recreation, shopping for the intercultural evening, cooking
19:00 Intercultural evening and celebration
February 20th
09:30 – 12:30 Facts and Tips for Erasmus+ projects; Successfully developing, drafting and submitting projects to the new program Erasmus+
Introduction by local Infopoint „Infoeck“
14:oo – 18:30 Working with young people, engaging participation Specifics to youth-participation and youth mobilization
Introduction by local youth participation expert
19:00 Dinner and Evaluation, free evening
February 21st
09:30 – 12:30 The guide: Working on concepts for intercultural projects (with young adults) focusing on political themes and using art as the instrument of expression;
Group session
12:30 Lunch
14:00 – 18:30 Presenting each others group-work, finding and filling vacancies, Forming ideas about possible approaches and improvements for activity weeks.
19:00 Farewell dinner and final evaluation
February 22nd Departure
ARRANGEMENT OF ACCOMONDATION & FARE
If your project scope is confined to a local area and all participants at-tending the meetings live in an easily manageable distance, arrange-ment of accommodation might not play a role for your undertaking. The bigger the number of participants and different countries involved, the bigger the organisational effort to be handled by your team. Not all participants will have exactly the same needs and you might be com-pelled to adapt to some of them in time, but there are certain standards and regards that should be taken into account from the start, like the general quality of the accommodation, the spatial separation of men and women (especially in young groups) and the distance the partici-pants willhave to manage to get from the place where they stay to the project venue. Hostels and youth accommodations most likely will be what you are looking for in terms of affordability. You should definitely check out a place you are considering to book first and make sure it is up to stan-dards and convenient for the projects participants. It is advantageous to get an estimate on the costs per participant early for your budget planning, so be sure to ask for one and also stress the fact that you are implementing a non-profit project, it might get you a slight price deduction. Another possibility is to approach the management of the quarters and ask for a (partial) sponsoring in terms of accommodation. Arrange for the booking as soon as you have your final schedule figured out and know the exact number of people that will need lodging, for especially affordable places could be booked solid if you wait too long.For Art of Democracy we resorted to a hostel in the city centre, that we have been successfully using for our previous seminar project. The cost-benefit ratio of this hostel is exemplary and the participants had a whole apartment with several rooms and a kitchen at their disposal. By pre-booking all of our activity weeks at once we were able to negotiate a further discount on the already very affordable accommodation. The breakfast is included and the walking distance to the Bäckerei is ten minutes. The hostel managers are very forthcoming, so f. e. when we brought up, that the participants would like the breakfast to be more diverse – as the hostel is attached to a famous pastry shop they usually
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serve only a sweet selection – they accommodated their wishes star-ting the following morning. That brings us to the organisation of the daily fare for your team and participants. Many accommodations will provide breakfast which lea-ves you with taking care of daily lunch, dinner and snacks. Depending on how you think of arranging this, the fare can be a significant cost factor. University or community canteens can constitute an affordable way to cover fare and if you are realising your project in the frame of Erasmus+ you might even be eligible to claim the students discount. If your project venue has a kitchen at its command, you can investigate possibilities of in-house-cooking like we did, which is of course most practical and time-saving for the participants. In our case we had se-veral cooks that alternated cooking lunches and dinner and who also took care of providing fruit and small snacks during the day. If you em-ploy cooks to cater to your needs, don‘t forget that you will need their fee notes and if you use a canteen for these purposes you need all the checks or invoices.
INFORMATION MATERIAL FOR PARTICIPANTS
You will have to provide your participants with organisational informa-tions on venues, accommodation, transportation and schedules up front. It is advisable to produce an informative and welcoming docu-ment comprising of these informations and it will be appreciated if you – once group has arrived - offer city maps and additional knowledge on the place where the participating people will spend their time. In-formations of interest to them could be f. e. upcoming events, city tours or recreational spaces. It will pay off to go by your local tourist office for some materials - they should be happy to help you there. The welcome-folder we provided for Art of Democracy comprised of:Welcoming introduction including some basic information on Innsbruck:
Short description of the schemeShort information on the hosting organisation and teamInformation on the project venue and how to get there
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Information on the hostel and how to get thereAn excerpt of the city map showing the significant routesThe schedule for the week
DOCUMENTATION
The record of your project is supposed to include all informative and significant documents produced during its planning and implemen-tation as well as a written report and visual material on the meetings. For your project refection and final report the documentation of your venture with different media is of great value and it is also a nice way to preserve the memories for your participants. If you and your core team are directly involved in the activities it makes sense to employ someone among your associates to take care of the photo- and video- documen-tation of the meetings. Should this person not be present at all sessions, see to that the most important ones are covered. The proper archiving and post-production – f. e. if video recordings have been made – has to be arranged for too, should this not be handled by the documenting team or individual themselves. Additionally to taping and photogra-phing the proceedings during the participatory workshop and the acti-vity weeks of Art of Democracy, we documented the sessions that con-centrated on theoretical input with a dictaphone – this way we were able to concentrate completely on the content of the input during the actual lecture, as we were not forced to take notes to have the essential informations on record. A written report of the meetings and activities can be formal, a struc-tured account or a form prepared by your funding agency, or informal, stating the events in a narrative way. Most likely this will depend on the requirements of the financial and/or institutional stakeholders in your project. The written statement should supplement the collected docu-ments in your final report. A publication like the guide at hand equates to a very comprehensive record of planning, implementation and eva-luation at once, but it is in general no replacement for the organised documentation in regard to the final report but another informative addendum.
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At its most basic, a participatory workshop is an organised event which brings a group of people together to seek their opinions, extract their knowledge and to solve problems in a collaborative and creative environment. We decided on this format for our first meeting with the ambassadors of our partner organisation, aiming to enable an open discussion and examination of the goals of the project and the guide we were going to produce and inviting input on its further progression.
The ambassadors came from different background of youth and cultu-ral work and already brought a lot of knowledge and experience into the sessions but to create some common ground in terms of the special challenges of a non-profit project utilizing art and participatory approa-ches we invited external experts to lecture and facilitate discussion.
IMPLEMENTATIONOF MEETINGS
PHASE 1PARTICPATORY WORKSHOP
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EXPERT INPUT
We invited two local politicians active in the context of cultural policy and participative strategies who gave us an introduction to their fields of work and to the biggest challenges they are confronted with ope-rating in and with the democratic system as well as its qualities. They furthermore offered an insight on participative processes in democra-tic systems and the paradigm of participation as such. The last part of their presentation consisted of examples of participatory projects com-bining performance and political messages in public interventions one of the lecturers himself organised.Moreover the chief of Innsbrucks artistic centre and leading artist-in-residence-program “Büchsenhausen” came to talk to us about the re-quirements, possibilities and the impossibilities art as a tool for socio-political expression. Together we examined the complex relationship between art and politics and the paradox nature of professional artistic practice aiming to mediate a message and to counter the mainstream within the frame of modern capitalist society. Examples of relevant arti-stic works that are distinctive in this context as well as such that present techniques that might be able to break the paradox concluded the de-liberations and introduced common discussion and examination.A specialist in terms of youth participation and engagement informed us about the challenges of inviting participation and engagement among young people and presented us with several examples of good and bad practice in the realm of the realisation of youth projects he gave us essential input on strategies and methodologies.Last but not least the local agency of Erasmus+ gave us an introduc-tion into the realities of implementing an intercultural youth project within the frame of the updated program. The objective was to lower the inhibition threshold for ventures of larger dimensions among the ambassadors and to motivate them to get started with their own ones supported by their home-organisations.
With this input in mind we tried to establish in a team effort the require-ments and challenges of the specialised project guide we were aiming to produce.
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GROUP WORK
We started the week by introducing our supporting organisation, the team responsible for the project, the basic idea and the tasks we wan-ted to tackle during this participatory workshop.The ambassadors presented themselves and their sending organisa-tions orientation and work. We employed a facilitator to lead us through some light-hearted getting-to-know-activities and short team-building exercises to form a sense of community among the participants. The first part of the week was devoted to the experts input and topic related group discussions like described above.
The second part of the participatory workshop was made up by the common work on a basic outline for the guide based on the require-ments like we anticipated them. As the ambassadors brought with them experiences in different areas of youth - and cultural - work we were able to analyse the challenges from different perspectives but also encountered communication pro-blems rooting in these differences. While some participants only had experiences with local community projects, others came from a back-ground of national and even international project management, there-fore there was a discrepancy in approaches.
After ending the first part with a team discussion to reflect on the most valuable elements of the input we received, we started off in small work groups trying to identify the steps of managing a project with young peoples based on previous experiences and knowledge – Though enough time was given, the first complications arouse here already. The perspectives on project planning and the necessary actions that have to be taken diverged which lead to very complex and incomplete structures that were presented by the groups afterwards.
So we decided to thoroughly examine the idea of what we would want and need the guide to be and in which points the notions differed the most:
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What should someone know after reading, that he/she didn‘t knew before? Who can really make use of the guide? Which role can art play in youth projects? What are the actual methods we want to spread?
While the discussions did not exactly end in a common understandings or solutions, it did give us a lot to reflect on and to incorporate in our manual. The conclusions, as far as we were able to come up with them, added up to the following:
I READ THE GUIDE AND NOW I ...
» know how to structure my idea in a systemic way
» have tools to use in youth work
» know how to implement my projects with different approaches
» know how to face cultural projects with an open minded vision
» know how to work in/with a non-hierarchical team
» know how to find partners and similar projects
WHO WILL AVAIL ONESELF OF THE GUIDE?
The guide should be of value to anyone who is aiming to plan and implement a project with young people, but focus on intercultural ventures that instrumentalise artistic tools and methods and aim to approach issues of political awareness and conscious citizenship (in ge-neral or with a practical action in mind).
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WHAT PART CAN ART PLAY IN YOUTH PROJECTS?
In the context of youth work and projects art can be a tool for your team to engage motivation in young people to take part in a project – the artistic methods should therefore meet the interest of the people the venture addresses.Moreover art can be a tool and technique you give the young people to enable them to express their own views and ideas. It can be utilized for interventions, projects of community beautification, as a means to en-gage young people in benign activities, as a contentual part of events, etc. A project utilizing artistic techniques can lower the young peoples threshold for political and artistic expression at the same time which strengthens their confidence in their opinions and their skills. An artistic outcome created in a participatory group effort serves the team spirit as well as the individual confidence, therefore art can be a means of empowerment.
WHAT ARE THE METHODS PRESENTED IN THE GUIDE?
» Methodology of agile project management
» Participatory approaches in project implementation
» Art as tool and/or technique in relation to sociopolitical issues
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Address of the recipient
Contact information of the sender
Regarding: Request for modification of the grant agreement
Project title
Project number (if applicable)
Project period
Applicant, organisation
Authorised signatory
Date of the contract
What are you aiming to change? (project period, number of participants, partner,...)
Statement of reasons
Signature of the authorised signatory
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One of the aspects brought up by the workshop group was to in-clude participants younger than 18 as we concluded that confidence building in citizens should start from an early age and moreover they profit from tools that allow them to express their opinion before they reached the age to vote. We therefore had to consider our concept with a perspective on younger participants and decided to involve partici-pants starting at the age 15 for the activity weeks. As there are additio-nal responsibilities and conditions in terms of safety, hours, etc. linked to that, we asked the ambassadors and their organisation who thought of sending youngsters to have at least one person over 18 among their participants. We had a facilitator for the first day of the participatory workshop to help us with the introductory phase and the first steps towards team-building but in hindsight we realised that it would have been advan-tageous to have had a supervision for the group sessions too. This was one of the aspects we reflected on after and in the participatory workshop and took up in the implementation of the activity phases fol-lowing. We went back to planning and arranged for a full time facilitator and briefed the professional artists that were to lead the workshops and stood by the group when they planned and implemented their own artistic projects. As this also meant shifting resources and money within the budget we needed to justify the modifications. So before we could commence taking all necessary steps we had to file a change form with the national agency that stated exactly how much money we shifted and why. If and how changes can be made is determined by the outli-ne and requirements of your individual project and the agreement you have with the body you have to give account to. Should you want or have to hand in alterations formally but don‘t have a prepared form you should account for the informations stated on the previous page.
TRACING & RE-PLANNING
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To keep the groups to an overseeable size and to have grounds for comparisons we implemented two activity weeks following the same basic structure in spring and summer 2014. While for the first week we had to prepare mostly office- and writing materials for the people par-taking, this time we had to prepare a lot of artistic supplies as well as bigger and more workshop rooms, so the teams would have separated and extensive space for their creative processes.Like the participatory workshop the activity weeks started of with get-ting-to-know and team-building activities guided by the facilitator and an introduction into the relations between art and democracy. Joining the participants were the two young professional artists – one a per-formance artist working in theatre and opera, the other working with visual arts and interventions – who guided them through the practical part of the weeks.
ARTISTIC WORKSHOPS
The professional artists each had a day to introduce themselves and ex-amples of their work and to give all participants together an orientation workshop where they were able to find out which form of expression suited them most or which they felt they would profit and learn from the most. The performer worked with them on body language and coached them
PHASE 2ACTIVITY WEEKS
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in finding and using their voice and the group presented a performance of an impressive harmony at the end of the day. The other professional gave them an introduction into working with positive messages and ef-fective simple methods like stickers and chalk, after evaluating together with the group what they were interested in the most. Afterwards they had to decide which path they wanted to follow the rest of the week. We chose this approach to give the participants the freedom of choice in terms of the artistic way of expression they wanted to chose and also see to that there was enough time for them to work intensely on their small project. It was very important for us to find a healthy balance bet-ween supporting the participants through workshops and giving them the artistic freedom to make the projects their own. After they decided for a route, they split into two groups and began with the planning and implementation of their own ventures. The first task for both groups was to find an issue that they want to address with the project. They held group discussions to exchange views among each other and they went out to explore Innsbruck as a team to gain some insight on the local surroundings. Moreover they looked for direct input from Innsbruck‘s residents by interviewing people around the or-ganisation and on the street, asking them what bothers them in their environment and what they appreciate about it. A list of “hot topics” to discuss and examine were the outcome of the visual art group‘s efforts:
Hot topics (findings of activity week one)
» Homeless people living in the “Sillschlucht” (a small canyon in Inns bruck) under bad conditions – prohibitions are set in place but with no alternative for the Roma and Sinthi people living there
» Prohibition to use the green area in the “Hofgarten”, a public park
» Prohibition to drink alcohol that people brought themselves in the “Maria-Theresien-Straße” in the public city centre (while it is allowed to consume it, when you bought it at one of the cafés and bars there) – underlying objective to get beggars away from the lively tourist spot)
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The performance group worked with several topics that the participants felt relate to them while the other team aimed to decide to focus on one issue. To come to a decision the artist leading the workshop applied a so called “creativity method” called “six-thinking-hats” which enables a group to consider either an idea or a problem from different perspec-tives and to come up with a satisfying conclusion relatively fast. There are several creativity methods that are suited for group work and deci-sions, a link to a comprehensive list of such including the instructions on how to use them, you find in the following infobox. The approach led the participants to the finding, that the hot-topics have in common the underlying critique on making prohibition the go-to-method of lo-cal political problem solving and this became the issue they wanted to tackle while at the same time applying the idea of “positive messaging” and “awareness raising” their workshop guide had introduced to them.
The next challenges of the teams were to chose the specific artistic tools they were going to use to mediate their message. In both activity weeks the performance groups came up with a intense performance utilising their voices and bodies to mediate a message and effectively working with their given surroundings but while the first group presen-ted their elaborate performance at the concert hall of the Bäckerei, the second group presented their work in a public park, where they were joined by curious children who light-heartedly took part in the actions and compelled adults watching the happening. The first group working with the visual artist decided to work with sten-cils, tape and stickers they designed and prepared themselves: f. e. tape that carried the message: “You are entering the prohibition-free zone” that they applied on different spots around the inner city, aiming to raise awareness of the omnipresence of prohibitions and the actual ar-bitrariness of prohibitive zoning in the centre. The second visual arts group constructed and dressed elaborate man-nequins of mendicants and replaced their faces with notes that told stories out of the life of homeless people and presented facts on the sad reality of sleeping rough. They placed the dolls on different lively places and people were forced to go close to their “faces” if they wanted to read the message.
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The activity weeks were a great success for all people involved and we were able to learn a lot from the experiences for future project work, like the fact that, although there was a big age difference between some of the participants, the right guidance and a suitable format enabled engaged team work and a feeling of equality and confidence among all members.
INFORMATIONBOX!
further information for creativity methods:
http://creatingminds.org/tools/tools_ideation.htm
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The celebration of the groups accomplishments is not to be unde-restimated and should be a fixed part of the schedule. It supports the sense of community among the members and allows them to reflect and appreciate how far they have come as a team.For the participatory workshop as well as for our activity weeks we deci-ded to organise an intercultural evening during each week, where – in accordance to the participatory fashion of the meetings– all the par-ticipants took part in the preparations and introduced a part of their culture. Starting in the late afternoon before the celebration they pre-pared dishes together that are typical for their home countries and la-ter on served them accompanied by an introduction to the meal and its origin. Moreover they shared facts and anecdotes about the places where they come from and the everyday life there. The participants of the activity weeks spent part of the night playing and singing songs together– popular and from their places of origing – while others were dancing along and this made the event even more colourful. To this occasion we invited all local associates and helpers to commemorate the project‘s progress with us and enjoy the chance for free exchange. How you will design the celebration in your venture depends, again, on the size of the group and on the possibilities you have in terms of venue and infrastructure, but you should definitely make some time to worthily acknowledge the commitment of all people involved and give them a chance to reflect positively on their own efforts. The participants designed their free time however they wanted to but receiving a lot of proposals and information on the possibilities from us.
CELEBRATION& FREE TIME
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As an event centre the Bäckerei program offered concerts and exhibi-tions that were free for them to attend and there were several events around the city that we were able to recommend. The people took us up on our offers and often they decided to do something together as a group. On the first evening we arranged a city tour so the visitors could learn something about Innsbruck and enjoy some of its sight while at the same time getting to know their way around the city centre.
EVALUATION& IMPACT
PARTICIPANT FEEDBACK
We started every morning of the meetings with a common reflection on the progress of the project and asked the participants to let us in on their individual impressions and on how they currently felt about diffe-rent aspects of their stay and the undertaking itself. During the activity weeks all the early sessions were guided either by the facilitator or the professional artists to enable a balanced and open mode of communi-cation. The feedback we received was partially for us to document and consider for further projects but also referred to issues that we were able to tackle right away, f. e. regarding accommodation and food or the day‘s schedule. We learned that they would have appreciated even more time to experiment with artistic methods and that is was hard for many of them to make a choice of route as they would have liked to develop their skills in both areas.
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At the end of each week we had an overall evaluation with the partici-pants. We used the so-called pizza-evaluation on a flip chard to get an overview of the participants impressions on all segments of the project week and then focused on the problematic in further discussion and in the short questionnaire we sent out via email to all participants after the end of the meetings. The latter aimed to enable them to take a step back and to reflect on their own on their experiences without the group “watching”. The questions we posed were:
»What was your most significant (learning-)experience?
»What did you take with you? Where and how do you think your new skills and knowledge can serve you in the future?
»What about the project week didn‘t you like and/or what should be improved?
We received exclusively positive feedback from the participants of the activity weeks and therefore concluded that the improvements we made in regard to previous projects and to the participatory workshop (especially in terms of facilitation) were necessary and successful.
Excerpts feedback:
What was your most significant (learning-)experience?
The experience I feel gave me a lot and which will help me in my future life was that the presentations and discussions were in English and I therefore had to form thoughts in English. I know much more about art and demo-cracy after this week which is also great. There are lots of other experiences I take with me as well, like the legal street art, making stencils, the introducto-ry performance workshop etc. All of these experiences were great and that‘s the reason why I can‘t choose just one. (A., 16 years, Slovakia)
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What did you take with you? Where and how do you think your new skills and knowledge can serve you in the future?
Firstly I took with me great memories and friendships that I cherish. I have learnt a great deal about various issues that concern young people from Austria, Spain and Slovakia and how these issues could be dealt with. Many things that I did and learn as a participat of Dominika‘s workshop will be es-sential to my personal work and growth. Exercises helped me with building up a self confidence to present and deliver my ideas in a convincing and believing manner. (L., 29 years, Slovakia)
What about the project week didn‘t you like and/or what should be improved?
The only thing I can think of is that it would be nice to have a little more time for the projects, because I felt like there was still a lot more energy in me to do something bigger after we finished. I do realize how important the other parts of the week are though, so in the end making the week more than a week might be the best thing. (M., 17 years, Austria)
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IMPACT
Local impact:
The local community was involved as they were interviewed by our participants to find the current hot-topics and of course our support staff and most stakeholders were locals.The artistic projects were presented in public space, depending on the art form the participants chose for their „message”. They were either live-urban interventions or mediated artistic expressions presented in public space. The performances on the street and at the Bäckerei as well as the visual artworks were enjoyed and received by local residents. Some of the by-standing spectators and passer-bys showed interest in the background of what they‘ve witnessed and involved themselves in a conversation about what they‘ve witnessed, some even in the perfor-mances themselves. The recognized on their own that the works the participants produced deal with local and global political issues that touch their lives too and gave them positive feedback on their work. Last but not least the participants brought cultural and artistic diversity to Innsbruck. The local artists and cultural mediators got a chance to make intercultural connections with individuals and organisations.
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Impact for the participants:
For some of the participants, this project was their first intense inter-cultural experience - therefore this venture served as a teaser to enga-ge future intercultural learning processes. They took with them know-ledge, skills, confidence and practical experiences in realising a project together with (other) young people within a participative framework and fulfilling an artistic claim. Their ability to assign their places in de-mocratic processes on a local and an European level have improved.
As a tangible certificate the participants received a Youth-pass with a description of the knowledge and the skills they gained by participa-ting in the activities. Furthermore promoters as well as participants will receive a copy of the guide at hand.
Impact for the involved organisations:
Through the ambassadors knowledge about good and bad practice as well as the challenges of realising a project together with young peo-ple was brought back to the partner organisations. They will be able to use their experiences and the finalised guide in order to realise new and future projects and moreover, by it they own a documentation of the venture they took part in. The guide as an informative toolbox can easily be handed over to other cultural mediators and youth workers. Furthermore they expanded their pan-European network and there-fore have additional resources in terms of finding partners for future intercultural projects. The Bäckerei as the host organisation as well was able to broaden it‘s partner-network and the guide serves as a record of the team‘s accomplishments and the essential part the organisation played in in the projects implementation.
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INFORMATIONBOX!
Evaluation questionnaire:https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/evaluation/
Tools for the evaluation youth projects and programs general: http://www.youth.society.uvic.ca/node/276
http://www.nprcenter.org/evaluation-outcomes
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/management/the-right-tools-can-make-evaluation-less-painful-more-productive.html
Participative evaluation: http://www.youth.society.uvic.ca/node/285
Icebreaker & energizers:http://www.ydnetwork.org/Icebreakers
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STAGE 5CLOSING THE PROJECT
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There will be several areas of “clean-up” to address before announ-cing the project‘s success and closure. We started with a comprehen-sive team meeting, examining the outcomes and the process leading up to them in reference to your project plan and the adjustments you have made (the latter if applicable). It is advisable to create a itemization of „lessons learned“ that you can go back to for future references and discuss elements of good and bad practice and what led up to them. Your finance team will have to ensure that all invoices and bills are paid and collected and complete the final accounting of the project budget as agreed-to by your project sponsor or funding agency. Should there be surplus fundung, account for why there is money left in the budget and make sure there are no open contracts or payments to be fulfilled. Most organizations will expect the delivery of some sort of final pro-ject report. This document is to be delivered to your project sponsor or funding agency and should be a recap of the project. Erasmus+ as well as other governmental funding agencies provide you with a form in terms of the final report as well, but no matter if the form is pre-given or if you have to organize the information yourself in a written report or a presentation, the content is similar. You will include intelligence from the project plan, like the objectives, the schedule and the profiles of the participating parties as well as data on the results of your venture. Com-pare the project as you planned it with the outcomes and justify and describe changes, challenges and problems you faced during it‘s exe-cution. Collate the responses to the feedback questionnaires and add the findings of your evaluations - maybe even give recommendations for future undertakings. If you documented the project‘s progression and process along the way, you will have a lot of meaningful material you can fill your final report with. Especially video- and photo-material serve to give an account of the projects implementation and allow the recipients of the report to get a more vivid impression. In addition to the above topics, make sure to include your final reconciliation of the project budget.In our case the production of the guide in front of you was an essential and extensive part of the project closure. After the last activity week the assigned team got together to create the basic outline of the guide in reference to the input we received during all meetings and the experi-ences we have made implementing the project. This was also the time
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when we came up with and explored the idea to base this project management handbook‘s form on the structure of a travel guide, for reasons that we stated in the introduction. The biggest chal-lenge was to combine general informations and concrete examp-les in a comprehensible and overseeable way so that it can be of practical use to it‘s target audience. We distributed tasks regarding research, media, writing and revision and inquired for different of-fers on print and book-binding until we had an estimate that were conform to our wishes and the given budget. While we created the textual contens ourselves, we hired a professional to take care of the layout, making sure it actually is lucid and conforms to the stan-dards required for print and binding without complications. Moreo-ver we wanted to make sure that it‘s looks and handling appeals to the readers and motivates picking up the guide. As we thoroughly documented our project throughout it‘s progression we had loads of material to revisit, organise and assimiliate. We realised soon that the guide was going to be more extensive in pages and work than assumed in the project plan, so we had to file another change form for an extension of the projects last deadline with the national agency which was approved immediately. After months of intense work we were finally able to send the guide to the printers, add the last invoices and numbers to the accounting and submit the final report with the Austrian agency of Youth in Action aka Erasmus+. All participants and organisations receive copies for reference and additionally the guide will be published online via the Bäckereis homepage as an open source document for everyone to access.
Once the Final Project Report is delivered and accepted by the projects funding agency, the project‘s closure can be announced to all involved parties and stakeholders and you have ensured the release and re-assignment of all project team members. Your final chore as project managers is to make sure all project documentati-on is archived and accessible. With this we conclude our journey into and through project ma-nagement and we hope you enjoy and profit from the experiences you make as much as we did!
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Host organisation:
Die Bäckerei -Kulturbackstube Dreiheiligenstraße 21 a6020 Innsbruck - Austria http://www.diebaeckerei.at/english-home.html
Partner organisations:
TKI Tiroler Kultur Initiativen Dreiheiligenstraße 21 a6020 Innsbruck - Austriahttp://www.tki.at/home.html JUFF Michael-Gaismair-Straße 16020 Innsbruck - Austriahttps://www.tirol.gv.at/gesellschaft-soziales/juff/ IG KULTUR ÖsterreichGumpendorfer Straße 63b1060 Wien - Austriahttp://igkultur.at/ TABAKFABRIKPeter-Behrens-Platz 114020 Linz - Austriahttps://tabakfabrik-linz.at/ HCCF Healthy City Community FoundationKomenského 21974 01 Banská Bystrica - Slovakiahttp://www.knzm.sk/ CENTRUM KOMUNITNEHO ORGANIZOVANIA Kapitulská 13974 01 Banská Bystrica - Slovakiahttp://www.cko.sk/ LA GUAJIRAC/Cruces bajas,1Almeria - Spainhttp://laguajiradealmeria.blogspot.co.at/
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OFF LIMITSCalle de la Escuadra, 1128012 Madrid - Spainhttp://www.offlimits.es/
Erasmus+ and Youth in Action
National Agency AustriaInterkulturelles ZentrumNationalagentur Erasmus+Lindengasse 41/101070 Wien – AustriaLINK AUS GUIDE
Info EckKaiser-Josef-Straße 16020 Innsbruck – Austriahttps://www.mei-infoeck.at/
National agencies finder
http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/tools/national-agencies/index_en.htm
CONTACTS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Acknowledgements
Experts and lecturers:Mesut Onay Ingrid Felipe
Andrei SiclodiPeter Egg
Benjamin Stern
Facilitator and professional artists:Lukas Weiss
Dominika DonigaNerijus Malinauskas
Sponsoring:MPREIS Warenvertriebs GmbH
Landesstraße 16A-6176 Völs - Austria
Furthermore we want to thank all our lovely and motivated participants without whom this project could not have been successful, as well as our hard-working hel-pers who engaged in setting up the project and who took care of the delicious ca-tering and last but not least all the Bäckerei's associates who supported us with their
work and shared their space with us.You are awesome!
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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the informa-tion contained therein.
A guide to agile project management in intercultural youth projects
with a focus on participatory strategies and con�dence building
by reference to ART OF DEMOCRACY - a project funded by Youth in Action
