My Communities

I experience this often. When there is information that the new government is determined to support agriculture, since we do not generate revenue, but render agricultural extension services. So, expectations are high, we develop demonstration research for the various agricultural enterprise. Soon, we begin to realign and adjust our targets when funds do not get approved early; sometimes, we eventually end up not carrying out any of the demonstrations for the year. The next year, we set our targets cautiously, having ones we could achieve with little or no funding.

I was assigned by an organisation to identify the needs and problems faced by people living in different resettlement camps in the northwest province of Cameroon after the lake Nyos disaster of 1988. I encountered problems because the community members could not agree on specific problems and how they could be prioritised. Furthermore what I was suppose to do was vast with no clear limitations.
in my view this can be better done if I was asked to address the problems in specific domain rather on everything.

A few years back I used to work in a construction site. There was this one instance when our manager asked us to complete blockwork of an entire building within 2 months. Considering the average amount of time blockwork of a single floor takes, it was highly unrealistic. Even after having many discussions, the manager was unwilling to increase the deadline. So for a weeks we tried to work on 3 floors simultaneously to make sure that we stand a chance of delivering our targets. However, that resulted in the sub-contractors quitting the jobs, the labourer complaining about the amount of work and drastic reduction in the quality of construction. After a month, when the manager realised the mistake in the approach, he finally increased the deadlines and revised the targets.

While working in a construction site, our manager used to give us many unrealistic targets. This used to result in reduction in quality control, contractors quitting the jobs and the labourers ending up being too exhausted. Therefore, when the manager was made to realise the gravity of the situation we used to sit and revise our given targets.

one time I was asked to reach a unrealistic target which was drilling water for a community that settled near a river to provide clean water for them but due to the water table and the location being near a river the water was being contaminated by the dirty water from the river hence making it impossible to provide clean water for that settlement.

@Mich-o said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

one time I was asked to reach a unrealistic target which was drilling water for a community that settled near a river to provide clean water for them but due to the water table and the location being near a river the water was being contaminated by the dirty water from the river hence making it impossible to provide clean water for that settlement.

@Mich-o, do you relocate the drilling when you found out that the closeness to the river is affecting the project? please share with us what happened.

@cnyingcho73 said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

I was assigned by an organisation to identify the needs and problems faced by people living in different resettlement camps in the northwest province of Cameroon after the lake Nyos disaster of 1988. I encountered problems because the community members could not agree on specific problems and how they could be prioritised. Furthermore what I was suppose to do was vast with no clear limitations.
in my view this can be better done if I was asked to address the problems in specific domain rather on everything.

@cnyingcho73 , do you discussed it with your boss/supervisor? If yes what was the outcome. Please share so other can learn something from it. Thanks!

@Ornela said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Once time i was asked to reach an unrealistic goal was when i was working on a project where average income community members were to open saving account for basic healthcare and nutrition needs but the targets were too high.I responded by giving the managing personnel reasons why that could not be achieved,by collaborating with colleagues and we did a survey on households.By this we realized that most of the community members had other accounts and secured insurance policies therefore they did not need other options.

@Ornela, This is the essence of reliable data because it helps you to set ambitious but realistic targets.

The one time I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when I was working on the project that was addressing national priorities for water related human health and climate induced migration. The project aimed at interviewing immigrants in the refugee camps in order to understand if environmental disasters contrubuted or has an impact in them leaving their home Countries. At the planning of this peoject we suggested that we must have funding for incentives but the company had no budget. The interviewees wouldn't want to participate due to hunger and they spend more that three days with no food. I had to use all of my S &T and personal money buying basic food for them so that I conduct interviews for the whole week.

So considering I've just started working with my organization, we were asked to get many enrollments for the internship or trainings program which was quite difficult to achieve considering there weren't many people interested in this. The target was too high and the job I had was just to promote it among my peers. So I started to find the reason behind why people wouldn't want to register and then found out that the problem was that most of them didn't get what my organization really does and these days all the students want to have all information in a very small post. So, I cut the posts short and modified them.

@nafulasmamai said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

One time I was asked to reach an unrealistic goal was when I was working on a project where low income community members were to open a mobile money saving account for basic healthcare needs but the targets were too high. I responded by collaborating with fellow colleagues and did a short survey on households, this way we realised that most of the community members had other secured other insurance policies therefore they did not need other options.

it may be that the logframe activity " activate money account for healthcare needs" wasn't the adeguate one and therefore the target won't get the aimed results.

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

**Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when I was working on a project in Cuba. Our indicator was about sending participants from their ministry to attend international conferences / workshops abroad. The beneficiary was extremely reluctant to send people abroad, but after explaining that not fulfilling the target of 9 participants, the donor would see it as a failure to the project. I convinced to send 6 participants, and we had to give a rational explaining that the beneficiary didn't find any international event of interest to justify the 3 trips remaining.

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

**Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when I got lead workshops in an district in which violence burst out unpredictably . I responded by revising the time frame, the question of security prevailing

@Gaelle This is really interesting and goes to show that when send assumptions are made regarding a project for example the community participation and engagement any disappointment or non commitment from them can lead to the failure of the project. I can relate to that but was the participant conduct related to the topic or total lack of motivation. Why will wonder if the project was designed with the community approval if so why the sudden change of conduct?

We started a saving group most of member had the high targets than ability of member in fifth month of contribution the group collapsed because of unrealistic target amount of members. Hence the project failed.

This was a good idea to avoid unrealistic targets.

@jacklineburudi said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

When piloting IGCSE for refugees the target was to enroll 20 candidates which was too ambitious for me.I suggested to the team that we plan for amaximum of 7 given that in Kenya self learning is uncommon and quite a number might not be confident to sit for the final exams ,we need to have evidence before the mass registration

I strongly agree with your position as it is important to have some form of evidence that participants would be willing to take part.

Hello,
i am Bushra Rana from Pakistan . i am teaching in school . i used to file monthly report for certain organization that I once worked with and at the beginning of every month the National level would set targets for each province and being at the local level the set target would seem unrealistic due to either the target exceeding the resources at hand or the target not being applicable to the situation at hand..e.g: the target would request that only high school student be included in program by reason of age while we have student of the same age whilst in primary school.

You know I've been in the same situation because our target was to train refugees from the age of 14 years but you realise it was very hard to set that target because it is very hard to differentiate between someone who is 14 and about and someone who is less and again every person wanted to get the chance of touching a computer
It became hard to hit that target of get people of 14 years and above

Like me I've also been in the same situation because our target was to train refugees from the age of 14 years and above but you realise it was very hard to hit that target because it was very hard to differentiate between someone who is less and above the age of 14 so it became hard to hit that target target since every person wanted to get the chance of touching a computer

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.
Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when I was working with a communication firm and was asked to get 600 new subscribers registered each month. The funny thing was that the network in our locality was not good and people are mostly not interested in that line. After coming in contact with the reality in the field, I responded by just going with what was obtainable in the market, though it was frustrating.

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was training of teachers . I responded by indicating the in could not be achieved in given time and human resource we have. We have a lot discussion with in team by analysis of time and resource and available data.

I responded by informing my supervisor that not all that can be counted should be counted thus we should a few realistic targets based on facts/historical trends

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

I have never faced such a situation so far. But to have aspirational targets which are achievable with hard work motivates the team to perform to their best.

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was to distribute 50000 food baskets in 3 days . I responded by dividing the number of the baskets by the number of distribution points and the time needed for each baskets and then shew it to the management to show them that it was impossible to do it in 3 days, so we extended it into one week.

I was asked to enroll 3500 women for adult learning across 140 learning centres in kachia LGA of Kaduna State Nigeria. This is way too high compare to the previous enrollment of 120 in the first circle of the project. I was able to employ community engagement strategy which help me and my team to sample out information from community gate keepers, key stakeholders and community members. This helped us to enroll the required number of beneficiaries. The possible suggestion from my own view to other learner's is to carry out tentative analysis on the subject matter and leverage/engage the right/relevant stakeholders on the particular subject matter.

we were once given unrealistic targets at our organisation when we wanted to conduct home visits for children living with HIV and update their case files. 200 case files were to be update by one person per week.This was unrealistic because we had to conduct home visit also. We did the best we can at the end of the week no one reached the target.When they asked the reasons why that is when we told them why we did no reach the target. That is how we solved our problem of unrealistic target that we were given that time.

M&E skills are truly essential if we are to have a robust implementation of programs and achieve real tangible results especially in the African health care systems.

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

Lucky for me, I've worked in conducive work environments that major in setting realistic targets and so, have not been placed in an untenable position before.

One day that i was to respond to an unrealistic target was in FY18. I was asked to distributing livestock to 800 people in Ruhanza communities while the commited budget allowed me to reach only 500 people.

I responded by asking the revision of the plan. I demonstrated that the budget was too low to buy 800 pigs because there was an inflation. The leadership told me that it was good to wait until the plan's review so that i can raise the question. When the time came, the question was raised. As it was very important to distribute pigs to all of targeted community members, the budget was revised accordingly.

In setting up your target, you need to consider your resources..
You must know your baseline this will help in setting up your target for your project.
You should not be too optimistic or pessimistic in setting up your target

@Alim16 said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

@Ornela said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Once time i was asked to reach an unrealistic goal was when i was working on a project where average income community members were to open saving account for basic healthcare and nutrition needs but the targets were too high.I responded by giving the managing personnel reasons why that could not be achieved,by collaborating with colleagues and we did a survey on households.By this we realized that most of the community members had other accounts and secured insurance policies therefore they did not need other options.

@Ornela, This is the essence of reliable data because it helps you to set ambitious but realistic targets.

That's it good to conduct formative surveys

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when we committed to implement 10 different interventions with at least three developers within one years time. I responded by revising the target to plan in any uncertainties that might delay the process, e.g. regulations or logistics.

I was involved in a project where the donor wanted to reach an unrealistically high number of people from locations that were difficult to access. We were able to provide evidence based on mappings we had carried out of the populations and were able to agree a more realistic target and population distribution.

I would say, when setting targets (or accepting targets set for us) it's important to research how realistic those are, there is nothing more demoralising that setting a target that will not be met. And that could also create problems with donor when they feel that the work we do did not meet their expectations.

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was to provide training to each and every child in a community on child protection and make each one of the participating kid complete a module of 3 months . I responded by _stating that getting the kids in the program will have to be based on their availability and interests, even though child protection is an important aspect but one has to be considerate that children go to work, study, have other engagements. so the target was altered on the feedback and changed to more practical aspects of children to attend at least one module on safe and unsafe touch to give them an over view of child protection. this was somewhat helpful in attaining and impacting the overall goal of the program _____ .

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when my team were asked to train 200 Nigeria Youth Corp Members on skill acquisition for one month I notice the target is unrealistic because one month is a short period for an individual to acquire and master such skill my team and I wrote back to our donor for the extension of the duration of the training for 3 months to enable the participants acquire and master the skill.

I was doing an exercise on market survey data collection .The target population was very limited with the sample area .The target entries were very high .I engaged my project manager and we increased the days to collect the data.

@777_777 said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when my team were asked to train 200 Nigeria Youth Corp Members on skill acquisition for one month I notice the target is unrealistic because one month is a short period for an individual to acquire and master such skill my team and I wrote back to our donor for the extension of the duration of the training for 3 months to enable the participants acquire and master the skill.

th

@PearlUtuk said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

Lucky for me, I've worked in conducive work environments that major in setting realistic targets and so, have not been placed in an untenable position before.

@PearlUtuk ,Lucky indeed. Let say for example things change and you find yourself in such situation,how will you handle it. Please feel free to share your thought with us. Thanks!

@ShikuKamau, Thanks for sharing your experience. Have you ever said yes to unrealistic target. If yes how did you and your team handle it?

one time i was asked to reach unrealistic target was i was asked to supervise relief food distribution in two distribution centres ,both running at the same time,same day.
I responded by notifying the supervisor of what he has requested and the risks involved and that for the two distributions to run concurrently at some point i will be delegating the responsibilities to the selected relief committees.

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was in 2017 when I was carrying a community water and sanitation project. The project required taking inventory on number of standtaps, assessing catchment sanitation and having 30-minutes focus group discussions with community water stakeholders (water board committee members). The scope of the project was 35 localities and 52 catchments. The duration of the project was supposed to be 40 days maximum. However, the design of the project was largely skewed with respect to scope and schedule. Catchments are located far on top of hills and the average time given for covering a locality was just about 1 day. The target was too much and the error came from the fact that the planning focused on the number of localities rather than on the number of catchments.
So the advice I can give to project planners is to do feasibility or reconnaissance studies before planning. Collection of baseline data is indispensable before every project planning.

@MariaKn said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when we committed to implement 10 different interventions with at least three developers within one years time. I responded by revising the target to plan in any uncertainties that might delay the process, e.g. regulations or logistics.

@MariaKn ,Thanks for sharing your experience. Can you please share your experiences with us when you revisit the target and what was the outcome so we can learn from each other. Thanks!

I was asked to meet an unrealistic target in 2007 by my Deputy Director. She asked me to go online in a space of one month to search for funding opportunities and write the proposal and win the proposal for the organization. It was just my few months into Development space as a volunteer in an organization where I am the only staff and she comes from her office as a government worker to supervise me. There was no orientation or training on proposal writing or even project management.

This was when I was asked to complete a funding proposal in a week's time.
I had to gather more resources including labour which shot our budget through the roof and risked not being approved. However, since we did not have the privilege to change the deadline or ask for more time I had to go out of the way, working more hours per day to submit the funding proposal in time

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?
Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by

Trying to reach unrealistically high targets can be difficult and frustrating. Such targets are not attainable given the resources and circumstances and no matter how much one tries, such target cant be achieved.

It is always better to set new achievable targets in such circumstances.

I was once instructed to measure the amount of waste generated per household within the city of Ibadan. At that time I thought I was required to go to each house and weigh the refuse generated per week in such household. I later realized that I was to collect samples of one in ten households within the city of Ibadan and I was to do it within a time frame that didn’t seem possible in my eyes. I attempted this project with 85 percent success at the end of the day. I didn’t meet up with the intended target but I did quite a tremendous amount of work and generated a sizable amount of data.

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded b

First of all I want to highlight this about setting unrealistic target, when the target is too low it affect the project because some donors can refuse or stop to support the project and when it is too high the staff may get tired to reach the project target which can discourage them in one way or an other. for our case we did not face with that issue always our target is real and achevable

@Kadebiyi said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

I was once instructed to measure the amount of waste generated per household within the city of Ibadan. At that time I thought I was required to go to each house and weigh the refuse generated per week in such household. I later realized that I was to collect samples of one in ten households within the city of Ibadan and I was to do it within a time frame that didn’t seem possible in my eyes. I attempted this project with 85 percent success at the end of the day. I didn’t meet up with the intended target but I did quite a tremendous amount of work and generated a sizable amount of data.

than you dear friend i gain something how your target was difficult to reach it with the interval time.

@davdanhi said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

This was when I was asked to complete a funding proposal in a week's time.
I had to gather more resources including labour which shot our budget through the roof and risked not being approved. However, since we did not have the privilege to change the deadline or ask for more time I had to go out of the way, working more hours per day to submit the funding proposal in time

thank you for your response this teach me about handling unrealistics target

@mlambo said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

M&E skills are truly essential if we are to have a robust implementation of programs and achieve real tangible results especially in the African health care systems.

that is okay, should you let us know the case you have faced about the unrealistics target and tell us how you have handled the case?

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

Yes I have been given a target too low before. I was given a target to reach out to one hundred audience in a Youtube video to create an awareness for a project in one month. Knowing that this target was not ambitious, i suggested that the timeline to reach 100 audiences be reduced to 10days. This proved that I had an experience in my field and I had done my research well.
In 9 days we reached the target of 100 views.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

My example relates to neither targets that are too low or too high. Rather my example relates to activity that had become unrealistic vis-a-vis overall project strategy - despite repeated high level targets and performance. In other words, though highly successful as evidences by consistently meeting targets, the micro-loan facility component was not clearly and logically contributing to the stated impact/objective.

There had been oversight of not only within the project strategy and its defined logframe - the logic flow relative to the micro-loan facility was weak - but also became visible with in the related budget line-item. The strategic objective that was the aim of all activity was "increased transparent local governance". It became clear that the activity did not meet or contribute to the objective. Also, though burn-rate was visible in the budget vis-a-vis the micro-loan activity, there still remained a large pool of grant funds that could not reasonably/ responsibly be used with in the remaining time period. Sub-grant activity was very low, except for funding to the micro-loan activity.

I brought this to the attention of my USAID project officers and headquarters, and proposed that the micro-loan activity be terminated and that all remaining funds within the line-item be used to fund a pilot to support transparent public procurement and budgeting across 17 municipalities - with an aim to increase transparent and equitable local service provision. The pilot was approved and ultimately, over 250 municipalities adopted the pilot model.

I would suggest to other learners, that attention should be drawn not only to study why a target is or is not being met, but also to continue to review whether the activity as it has actually manifested on the ground/in the community, still continues to follow logframe logic flow. Also, couple the logic flow review with review of related budget line-item burn-rate. In summary, based on my example, the targets were being met and the activity was popular and successful; however, it became clear that the activity was entirely extraneous - it was like a stand-alone component - and did not meet or lead to or contribute to the strategic objective.
Hugh C. Orozco 17 June 2019

@uzozurumba said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

Yes I have been given a target too low before. I was given a target to reach out to one hundred audience in a Youtube video to create an awareness for a project in one month. Knowing that this target was not ambitious, i suggested that the timeline to reach 100 audiences be reduced to 10days. This proved that I had an experience in my field and I had done my research well.
In 9 days we reached the target of 100 views.

Hello "uzozurumba",

I agree with you that a little bit of research would have revealed how effective social media (in this case use of video posted to Youtube) can be to promote project awareness and outreach. Additionally, research may also reveal information about how reasonable it may be to expect that a given community or geographic region may be interested in and have access to Youtube. Hugh C. Orozco (17 June 2019).

@kore1 said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

@Kadebiyi said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

I was once instructed to measure the amount of waste generated per household within the city of Ibadan. At that time I thought I was required to go to each house and weigh the refuse generated per week in such household. I later realized that I was to collect samples of one in ten households within the city of Ibadan and I was to do it within a time frame that didn’t seem possible in my eyes. I attempted this project with 85 percent success at the end of the day. I didn’t meet up with the intended target but I did quite a tremendous amount of work and generated a sizable amount of data.

than you dear friend i gain something how your target was difficult to reach it with the interval time.

Hello "Kadebiyi",
It may sound easy, but to me it seems like a difficult task. I have had experiences where individuals responsible for project design and targets sit at the home office with only some general understanding of the local context and the logistics that may be necessary to support target achievement.

It seems your job was made easier by not having to collect sample and data from individual households, but rather from only one in ten households. However, I also wonder how reasonable it may be to impose a deadline when there may not have been guidelines on how the households are to be selected - or is it entirely random? It also may not have been stipulated whether the households should be from the same neighborhood or from selected neighborhoods, or from random neighborhoods.

Also how is the sample/data collector supposed to reach the sites, via project vehicle, taxi, other public transportation or other mode of transport? What about traffic patterns that may delay you hours just to get to a site? Or what about designated hours for data/sample collection? What if people work and the households are empty during business hours? Or would culture and religious tradition allow for example a woman to answer the door to a stranger. Or are people willing to just hand-over their garbage to a stranger at the door, much less invite them inside to measure/weigh their garbage?

It would seem that in a city the size of Ibadan, that there may be other ways determine the output per household?

@Jefchima76 said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

I was asked to meet an unrealistic target in 2007 by my Deputy Director. She asked me to go online in a space of one month to search for funding opportunities and write the proposal and win the proposal for the organization. It was just my few months into Development space as a volunteer in an organization where I am the only staff and she comes from her office as a government worker to supervise me. There was no orientation or training on proposal writing or even project management.

Hello "Jefchima76",

I have encountered similar situations when high level supervisors or headquarter staff make requests that turn out to be unreasonable due to their lack of understanding of existing levels of capacity at the field level, whether among support staff or among beneficiaries.

In your case, it seems not only unrealistic but also insensitive and irresponsible to have an untrained staff member to be held responsible for a central/critical input. Drafting a winning proposal for funding to support specific activity is a critical input. Such a responsibility should not just be a random assignment given to a staff member with no prior experience in drafting funding proposals. To me that was a huge oversight by the higher-level supervisors and headquarters. Cheers, Hugh C. Orozco (7 June 2019).

It happened once we had targets that were not realistic but later were adjusted

Yes, in my organization the target that we have to reach is 31600 beneficiaries each year who has to benefit school uniform on January, food parcels for 3 months from January to March while we identify a change agent in their families( someone between the ages of 18 to 35 whom we can provide skills to and has the potential to change the state of the household), it is always difficult to reach those targets as we are very few in my team and we have to do household profiling, meaning going each house of the beneficiaries, assessing them on what they need( birth certificates, IDs, social grants, who needs skills etc), when all that work is done, we have to re-visit to check the progress until the household is slightly taken out of poverty and can be able to provide for themselves.

my response was to work smart and not hard, i decided the beneficiaries according to their addresses and divided them among team members, each member had a certain target per week which made our job a bit easier and closer to reaching the targets.

i would advise other learners to have team members who are living within their area of work or who are familiar with the places they are servicing to make it easier and faster for them to arrive early and be more productive without even having to worry about getting lost within the place they are working in.

Sometimes we need to go for reviews again and again to see whether the targets are unrealistic . If anything is really unrealistic than obviously we need to come up with justifications like why its not possible to achieve it and what alternately can be achieved.

there was a period when i and my team were asked to reach an unrealistic targets by ensuring that children in hard to reach location are vaccinated. Due to the nature of the terrain and security nature of the location we had to come up with a more realistic approach. We located few military personnel at that location and trained them on carrying out vaccination. The trained personnel then conducted the vaccination on our behalf. By so doing the targeted children were reached.

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when one of the local primary school requested us to help find why some parents are not collecting reports for their kids. The school held parents' meeting all the time prior issuing of learner reports to parents. The meeting was held in the afternoons. As a result parents who are from distant areas, who did not have vehicles were unable to collect reports for their kids before the meeting was held till late and were using public transport. The school provided us with a little budget for the work and expected our team to travel near and far to get answers. Realizing the difficult task laid before us we then decided to design questionnaire which parents will respond anonymously. In the questionnaire we asked relevant questions wanting to know why reports for certain learners are not collected by parents. The questionnaires were then given to learners for their parents to complete. That's how we resolved our problem of low budget.

For me, I have never been involve in working on unrealistic targets or setting targets for projects... someoneelse does the setting of targets based on the sponsor's demands and other factors. But this course has taught the importance of setting ambitious but realistics targets for projects.

During the finishing stage of the project ( Phase 1 Canaan-city Estate ) that i am currently involved right now, we received a message from our client saying that the houses must be habitable before Christmas (2018). As a result of that, the MD of my company gave a standing order that we were to meet the demand of the client one week before their deadline, but from technical point of view, it's not possible to meet up. We restrategised our working activities and that led to late night work and we had to bring in many labour that we didn't plan for at that stage. By the end of the deadline close to half of all the structures were ready. We gave the client some concrete reasons why we couldn't meet up and at the end , he was impressed we were able to deliver to that level despite the challenges.

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when i was working as a volunteer during with an Organization implementing an OVC program. The Target was that in every month we should provide services to 200 children from over 60 HHs. The targets was unrealistic with the current situation we faced in our communities as they were sparse apart from each other. The difficulty that made it unrealistic was that, In as much as they were sparse from each other possibilities were also that we could not find caregivers at home as most of them go to farm especially during farming seasons .

In our project we set target for 25000 thousand people visit, but actually end up with less than 5000. It was because project manager did not realize the field situation before starting the new project. So, during the closing period of the project, we realized to adjust the target and made it.

In our project we set target for 25000 thousand people visit, but actually end up with less than 5000. It was because project manager did not realize the field situation before starting the new project. So, during the closing period of the project, we realized to adjust the target and made it.

@Arithi said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target whereby i was required to vaccinate 4,000 heads of cattle per day with a team of three vaccinators and two animal handlers. This was not possible because cattle requires a lot of manpower to restrain for proper vaccination. The realistic target would be 1,500 cattle per day. I responded by showing my supervisor the average numbers vaccinated by similar teams from previous projects. Data available from vaccination reports showed that the highest similar teams vaccinated between 1,000-15,00 cattle per day. we therefore agreed that my team would set a target of 1,500 cattle per day.

That was a clever plan to convince supervisor with a reference of a team doing similar work. However, if we can't find someone to compare, we can invite supervisor to spent some time with us and check if the proper quality is ensured. This way, we can show that for quality work the target is too high.

@gbakaanvanenpeter said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when i was working as a volunteer during with an Organization implementing an OVC program. The Target was that in every month we should provide services to 200 children from over 60 HHs. The targets was unrealistic with the current situation we faced in our communities as they were sparse apart from each other. The difficulty that made it unrealistic was that, In as much as they were sparse from each other possibilities were also that we could not find caregivers at home as most of them go to farm especially during farming seasons .

While setting the target managers have to consider the seasonality issue and issues that are somehow common to the specific geography. Also, there should be a contingency plan to encounter unexpected issues.

One time that i was asked to reach and realist target was not long ago regarding maternal mortality.
The inputs From the donors were grossly inadequate to realize such outcome and impact with in stipulated time.
So we outlirned all this challenges and forwarded to them, to make necessary adjustment.

Thank you my dear peers.
Yonis Mohamed Dayib

Once upone time that I was asked to reach an realistic target was training of an employeers.
I responded by indicating the in would not be reached in selected tim and human resources we have. We have arguments with in team by analysis of time and resources and available data.

Thank you my daer colleagues. Abdirahman Omar Aynte.

@draynte said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Once upone time that I was asked to reach an realistic target was training of an employeers.
I responded by indicating the in would not be reached in selected tim and human resources we have. We have arguments with in team by analysis of time and resources and available data.

Thank you my daer colleagues. Abdirahman Omar Aynte.

@draynte said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Once upone time that I was asked to reach an realistic target was training of an employeers.
I responded by indicating the in would not be reached in selected tim and human resources we have. We have arguments with in team by analysis of time and resources and available data.

Thank you my daer colleagues. Abdirahman Omar Aynte.

It was a fantastic unrealistic storry
Thank for your sharing such an amazing story.

@Yonis_Dayib said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

One time that i was asked to reach and realist target was not long ago regarding maternal mortality.
The inputs From the donors were grossly inadequate to realize such outcome and impact with in stipulated time.
So we outlirned all this challenges and forwarded to them, to make necessary adjustment.

Thank you my dear peers.
Yonis Mohamed Dayib
That was t nice unrealistic story Thank for you sharing such an amazing.

I don't have an example from the development field, but for the example when there were no specific targets. But in my professional experience, I was asked to reach unrealistic target. Though, in my opinion, the issue was that it was too general, not broken down into smaller steps, expectations were not communicated clearly. Morever, there was no understanding of the process by the management, which I think is the key root of failure and dissatisfaction in many cases.

Sometime no target was made. This is an opportunity to me to know that each indicator must have a target.

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when I was asked to deliver health commodities to over 70 facilities in 2 local government areas and the input on the project was not enough. What I had to do was to call out some of the facilities to pick up their commodities from those close to them to reduce the time and number of facilities to visit

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

Setting of Performance Targets requires careful consideration of a number of factors:

1. Current Baseline information.
2. Resources such a

• capacity
• budget

3. It is ok to adjust target taking to account your resources and any situation in the performance environment.

it is almost inevitable to find yourself trapped in the unfortunate occurrence of either having too low or extremely high targets. From experience, the best way to approach this is employing adaptive planning. for low targets, you could easily redesign the project logical framework/MEAL Plan/ Results framework and revise your milestones. for high targets, the reverse is applicable - revising downwards the milestones. this however has to be justifiable, and reflect properly on value for money and other project semantics and compliance issues as well as existing grants agreements for donor funded projects. Alternatively, one could begin post implementation onset targeting i.e. strive to reach a wider geographical coverage to widen scope of reach. This is strategically done by doing activities/implementations that are not heavy on budget.

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when the general manager of the organisation told us to go through a pilot survey related to school dropouts of children and this has to be done within four days . I responded by kindly highlighting some of the the delimiting factors which could have hinder us from coming out with good results as well as meeting our targets. it was difficult to connect with the whole schools in the district due to lack of resources and poor road infrastructure as well as linking with the area gate keepers was a challenge. therefore, i advise my fellow students that if you are in the same scenario it is better to be realistic in highlighting supportive facts in achieving better targets than forwarding into unrealistic targets.

The last time I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when I worked as a Media Analyst Trainee. I responded by showing my manager data on the average target that is typically reached by a trainee and I compared it to the target expected. In so doing, we assessed the targets from previous months, established the pattern and then she reset the target and created a new one based on the data from previous experiences.

I work with Support Initiative for Sustainable Development (SISDEV). An organization partnered with us in carrying out Cancer awareness in Port Harcourt Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria.

We were given an unrealistic target. We were asked to sensitized a minimum of 4000 people every month and by the program design they gave to us, we were expected to go out for this exercise once every week.

As we began the sensitization program we realized that, one day isn't enough to reach the target and we decided to add one more day which made it twice in a week.

Logistics was provided for just one day in a week but we had to utilize the provision of one day for the two days and by doing so we were able to reach the target.

Although I have not had this experience yet, my advice is that the set targets should be achievable within the set time. Being too ambitious can get one in trouble and lead to failure of the project or other problems

@jkurama said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Sometime back we I was working on a project where we collected data/ surveys, and my team was given a target of each field officer to complete 4 surveys a day. All the other resources were provided but only one would not checkout, Time basing on the season of the year. It was a rainy season and we would take more time than usual to reach field being rural setting and very bad road. Each survey was taking approximately 2hrs which means we needed 8hrs of surveying to complete 4 surveys each and we had to a journey of about 1hr to go, 1hr to come back. The plan was meet the team at 7:30 in the morning debrief for 30 minutes, 8 headout, 9 start surveying till 5:30 in the evening. Head back, be at office by 6:30. Which was okay in real sense. But, it was a rainy season where we would get stuck on the bad roads for many hours and we did not have very good vehicles to. So, I talked to my supervisors, my team, about the target that we hard and the difficulties we are having reaching it. we first agreed on bringing closer reporting time to 7:00 am but we were still not hitting the target, we hard to settle for 3 surveys a day and at times it would mean leaving very early, earlier that 7 and sometimes coming back later than 6:30pm.

Oh that's though, dealing with the natural elements, and then in a rural setting, where I take the roads were not in very good condition. You know what, you improvised, you re-directed, and you seem to have made the very best out of a not so favorable situation. Great Job

I have often been challenged to meet great goals in a very short time that gets deficel the project complete its cycle and have the desired impact. When this happens, I try to make an additional effort to respond, but I also try to show prior to the senior managers the implications that may arise from this.
Therefore, I would not advise colleagues to contradict managers in cases of decisions taken to meet irrealistic targets, but to present a convincing technical opinion that shows the pros and cons. In my experience, this procedure has worked, because after the failure, they give credence to my opinion and in the following cases sometimes my recommendations are fulfilled.

My situation was when I was writing my thesis for my BA degree; My topic was developed which was endorsed by my adviser; But my sample size and area for my research survey were too huge and my adviser told me it was unrealistic and I asked him, How and why? He said "you have the needed resources to travel across rural Liberia to conduct a survey research for your thesis? and secondly he said we do not have time in our favor to get a lot of work done". He and I sat together and we did the needed adjustment and the survey research was conducted. So, it was for that point I learned that unrealistic targets can affect your project and that adjustment is always needed to help you meet a realistic Targets.

Setting a target may involve a lot of factors and even when target are set, one should know if it is achievable. sometimes unrealistic target is set to motivate people to put in extra effort, also can be as a result of funding etc Impossibility may become possible!

@ReatlegilePhiri said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

The last time I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was when I worked as a Media Analyst Trainee. I responded by showing my manager data on the average target that is typically reached by a trainee and I compared it to the target expected. In so doing, we assessed the targets from previous months, established the pattern and then she reset the target and created a new one based on the data from previous experiences.

Your boss might just want to see if goal post can be shifted. The fact that target used by another project is what you too should used, is not what I support.

I once worked for an organization that sets unrealistic target. Example was reaching out to youths in the community within age 18-35 still in school, teaching them soft skills training. But it's unrealistic because most youths within that age range in community weren't in school.

Only few months before, I was doing my MBA at one of the universities in India. The faculty had assigned us to work on so many assignments during only one week. While each of the assignments needed at least two days to be completed. I went to my mentor and other professors to request them to give us more time to work on the projects and assignments. They finally were encouraged to give us more time to work on our assignments.
Also I was witness in one of the small organization that used to set targets for its salespeople to sell at least 100 SIM cards per day which I think is impossible to do so.

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was in certain project of where we supposed to register children's but the target was unrealistic.I responded by share the reality of field in feedback meeting on end of week where committee come up with best way to solve that issue .

We planned health screening of 1,115 orphans in 6 different places. Each field officer arranged their enrolled orphans in the medical centers.

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

espond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.
Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?
Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was Health Screening of 1,115 orphan in a month. I planned and achieved 90% of the set target. We divided total children into 6 clusters. Each field officer arranged around 150 to 200 children in the cluster. Each officer planned the health screening in six consecutive Sundays.

For the projects that i have worked in the past, the targets were often set by donors and often if there were any changes required, these would be discussed and negotiated. That being said, our target on one of the projects i worked on was higher than we would be able to meet on our own as an organisation. We sub-granted some of the funds to smaller organisations that carried out some of the services and collected data that we needed and we reported on it. This helped us reach our target.

@Thani said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

For the projects that i have worked in the past, the targets were often set by donors and often if there were any changes required, these would be discussed and negotiated. That being said, our target on one of the projects i worked on was higher than we would be able to meet on our own as an organisation. We sub-granted some of the funds to smaller organisations that carried out some of the services and collected data that we needed and we reported on it. This helped us reach our target.

@Thani , Thanks for sharing your experiences. That was an excellent moves. Let look at it the other way around, since funds was not the problem why didn't you hired more people (expert) and do all the work yourself? Was that more expensive than the sub-grant? Please help me here so other might learn how your organisation arrived at that conclusion.

@SMBK said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

espond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.
Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?
Sample Post: One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was ______ . I responded by ______ .

One time that I was asked to reach an unrealistic target was Health Screening of 1,115 orphan in a month. I planned and achieved 90% of the set target. We divided total children into 6 clusters. Each field officer arranged around 150 to 200 children in the cluster. Each officer planned the health screening in six consecutive Sundays.

@SMBK, Thanks for sharing your experience. What was the challenges that prevent the team from achieving 100% of the set target. Please feel free to share so we can learn from each other.

@faithhadison said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

I once worked for an organization that sets unrealistic target. Example was reaching out to youths in the community within age 18-35 still in school, teaching them soft skills training. But it's unrealistic because most youths within that age range in community weren't in school.

@Faithhadison, This is why it important to set target using reliable data,not feeling.This will ensure that we are not letting our biases or assumptions influence our decisions.

@Course_Operations said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 3.

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

For unrealistic targets, I will advise one adopt the strategies for checking targets first, weigh the targets, then try to see or cut out an achievable part of the targets. I believe even targets themselves have risks

@Omotosho said in Module 3 Discussion: Unrealistic Targets:

Setting ambitious yet achievable targets can be difficult. Have you ever been asked to reach a target that was either too high or too low? How did you respond to the situation? What advice would you offer other learners who may be asked to work towards unrealistic targets?

For unrealistic targets, I will advise one adopt the strategies for checking targets first, weigh the targets, then try to see or cut out an achievable part of the targets. I believe even targets themselves have risks

One time I was asked to reach an unrealistic goal was to train youths from 18-35 years old still in school. But it was unrealistic in the community because youth within that age range were not in school.
I responded by saying there should be a change in location to get results.

I have dealt with my partner committing to an unrealistic target, which was impossible given the timeline and state of implementation. As her colleague, I had to push and readjust timelines of the other project implementation component in response.

There was this time we wanted to do a project for a world memorial day. there was not much time left and our project partner insisted that we do it so we went on. We set targets without doing research; pumped in resources; planned the events and the stakeholders that we wanted to feature more- whom we also spent a lot of time and resources to reach out to - ended up not coming. They could not come because they could not help it. We did not just consider the risks and the possibility that they may not be able to participate. So that was a lesson learnt the hard way.