DP 3.- And the cycle goes on: Project Design

Step 2.- Design of the intervention

Once the problem has been identified, the next step is to define the project that will fix it. As I said, sometimes the program has been designed before, even if it was made in a subconscious way.

During the design of an intervention there is a tendency to split the different sectors on it. I will try to explain what I mean with a real example of a project:

During the visit of a very important politician from an European country, a Central American government decided to show her the dump of the capital city, a place where many people work and live from the garbage. The habitants had built houses out of trash and the kids played and ate in one of the most unhealthy environments one can imagine, an image that is sadly too common in many countries. The politician, really shocked with this visit decided to “do something” and told the development agency of her country to implement a project in this areas. The agency designed a project that covered, between others, 2 areas:

–          Environmental: The dump would be covered to prevent contamination

–          Educational: the habitants would have help to adapt to the new conditions

These 2 areas were split between different organizations and businesses. An engineering firm was put in charge of covering the dump. Some education ngos were put in charge of an educational campaign that would help kids and adults to adapt to the new situation. Every organization started their work independently, and the design of the project was made separately for every objective.

As a result of this independent planning many problems occurred. Does it take the same amount of time to cover a dump than to change the habits of thousands of people that had been living in the dump for years? Of course not. After 6 months the dump was covered, but the educational ngos didn’t have time to change the habitants’ mindset in that short period of time. The habitants of  the dump found out that the place where they had lived and worked for years was suddenly closed, and many social problems, new problems that had never occurred before, started to raise.

In my opinion, only multidisciplinary planning is the key to good planning. All the different actors have to plan together to get good results. If the 2 organizations could have worked together with the same plan, covering the dump would have started only when the community was ready for it. But separated tasks of the same project created a really bad situation.

Social and psychological problems take a long time to change. This is called the “evolutive process” meaning that people need the time they need to adapt to a new situation. Sometimes it is just a matter of time, these processes can´t be rushed. A good example of it is aging: a person who is 15 years old won´t be able to act as a person who is 20, no matter how many manuals they read or how many workshops they attend. The evolutive process needs to be respected when working with people, and every action should put people first.

Multidisciplinary teams should plan a project together, and all the experts from different fields have to be considered equally important in the process. Otherwise, fixing a problem can become the beginning of a new one.

Do we plan in multidisciplinary teams to be able to consider all the variables that can affect a project? Are all variables equally considered?

Comments Off on DP 3.- And the cycle goes on: Project Design / 13 Jan 2013 por Paloma Andres Urrutia
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