My Communities

I was in a team of a project where we were comparing the number of people who used electricity power and solar power and to our surprise we found that most people prefer to use solar than electricity due to the many accident caused by electricity.

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

o identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about what can go wrong within the implementation of the project. this will help one to plan oh how to respond if any of these risks occur

While implementation a vaccination project in Wajir, Government employees allowance were revised and went up by a substantial amount. This meant that we had to look for an additional budget since the staff categorically refused to use the earlier allowances. Lucky the project had budgeted for 10% contingency fund ( Based on the total project amount). this helped us to start the project as we looked for funding elsewhere.

To identify risk and assumptions, it is helpful to think carefully what will affect the success of the program in respect to the planning and awareness one give to the upcoming program.
I will like to share a situation at my church last year vacation bible school which i am one if the facilitators. Vacation bible school is all about training children of age 9 to 16 and teenagers on how to be useful to themselves and their parent. In the process of planning the program the facilitators usually make a plan for 100 children for 5days camp but our plan for last year turns out to be wrong since we did not bring out the risks and assumptions in our planning. We later found out that over 200 children and teenagers registered for the camp due to the method of awareness we created for the progeam. So food items and materials for use was only planned for 100 children. We were able to solve the problems of the risks by going out each day to get more food items for each meals because every meals planned is not enough for the children so also the camp materials which makes us to spend more money than budgeted and more time than planned. What i learned from that experience is that there should be equality between the awareness of the program, the level of risks and assumptions that can arise with the planning and the provisions of inputs that are needed.
The tips for identifying risks and assumptions should not be biase, its should be based on the output of the projects.

THE INITIAL PHASE WILL INCLUDE ALL MUST HAVE REQUARMENT /ASSUMPTION/RISK/TEST APPROUCH
THE PROJECT IS USINING AGILE WILL WEEKLY INTERACTION .

if beneficiaries have low patronage of business and has no innovation creatives to convinces customer then business is going to melt down

We were implementing a project for mentoring the youth to develop skills in organizing events. We thought that the youth needed close guidance step by step till the end of the event. To our surprise the youth preferred being independent, develop their ways of promoting events and use a lot of social media channels to market the event. This was not allowed by the event sponsor. The design of the project was allowing only one person from our team to first get approval from our sponsor before airing out any information to the public. The event manager had a lot of stressful moments with the youth. Some youth actually dropped off the project. As a team, we decided to convince the sponsor to adjust in some of their media policies and let the youth own the process of the event otherwise the rate of dropouts was increasing.

@Vio said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

I was in a team of a project where we were comparing the number of people who used electricity power and solar power and to our surprise we found that most people prefer to use solar than electricity due to the many accident caused by electricity.

Hmmm...that kind of sounds like the results of your finding!

@sunlikesworld said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

We hard an activity which was an orientation camp of beneficiaries and we hard to move with cash to pay for their feeding and transport . on are way to the camp we where attacked by robbers and went away with part of the money meant for feeding. and we have to source for fund from order overhead on the project.

..the same thing once happened to us too in one of the projects where the gunmen attacked us on our way from the bank. All the money was taken and thank God they spared our lives. Since then, I learned to design the project with the element of using automated bulk mobile money payment for project beneficiaries and salaries for field officers. All is being handled in a centralized place preferably in our head office not in the field.

To identify Risks and Assumptions, it is helpful to think about _____________________________________
Since I have only been working at my current job for five months, without incidents, I must say, I will list a for instance scenario.
Before starting a project, there is a high probability of something going "sideways." Some of the many reasons for this happening is;

• A lack of organization

• Excessive compliance failure

• Complying with/ignoring new Regulations

• It is very important to be very clear from the beginning of a project what the expected objectives and outcomes will be, and to identify what specific changes are expected for what specific area (s).

• Start with and end with desired results, and include all team members involved with project.

Hello every hope you are well , Are natural disasters risks that could lead to organization to obtain a result lower than that desired for a project?
The result can be predictable but if it is not 100% achievable Can a lasting impact?

@Loraini said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about all possibilities of what will negatively affect the outputs, inputs and outcome of your project. It can vary from natural, social, political, cultural, financial causes. In one of our project, one of the risks that the project had to deal with was the unpredicted category 5 cyclone that encountered the project just when the project had started making it difficult for communities to commit because they were faced with problems that needed urgent attention such as improving social services, health and basic needs. The project had to spend some money to unplanned activities to help these communities back on their feet.

In that point, if you happen to know that one of the risk is going to affect your project and it might be natural happening risk like calamities, then does that guarantee to postpone or stop the project?

Hi guys,
I realized that identifying risk and assumption will help to plan unexpected activities that may need funds or expert to handle, and in that note risk and assumption are the vital points that someone has to understand and itemize all risks that might affect the project.

@AMAGAJU said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

once risks are identified, it is a better way to avoid all the negative impacts, so identifying risks is the crucial parts for the project to be successfull

Yeah I agree with you, identifying risk help to make project successful

I assumed that training data collectors using the tools without field practice session using actual figures and filled registers was good enough but i realized that this was wrong because the data they submitted had a lot of errors.

@Arithi said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

o identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about what can go wrong within the implementation of the project. this will help one to plan oh how to respond if any of these risks occur

While implementation a vaccination project in Wajir, Government employees allowance were revised and went up by a substantial amount. This meant that we had to look for an additional budget since the staff categorically refused to use the earlier allowances. Lucky the project had budgeted for 10% contingency fund ( Based on the total project amount). this helped us to start the project as we looked for funding elsewhere.

That was very thoughtful, that means if some of risks might need fund, during budget planning there is a need to add miscellaneous amount.

@Driungu said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.
Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.
Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?
Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about _______ .

To identify risks and assumptions is necessary to think of the response you will get from the beneficiaries and their close influencers.For example family members and also their culture.To avoid bias,data is necessary or any information that support your core mandate.

Yeah, i agree with you

During this year, my team organised to meet a women disabled only group to discuss a sensitive topic on sexual reproductive health. unfortunately some husbands of the women came along as guides to support the mobility of their wives. this obvious affected the free discussion since men were around. we didn't anticipate this. we learnt that its important to work with the beneficiaries to identify some of the things that may affect their participation in our activities. you have have a list list of your own identified risks and assumptions but its a good idea to also consult different stakeholders on what might affect your program.

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.

Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.

Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?

Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about _______ .
I work in organization that is involved in relief distribution in Wajir County, Kenya.
Just recently, the staff planned for distribution in one of the villages and the governor was expected to launch the distribution. The staff picked on a centre with assumption that it is most ideal given limited time in planning the whole project. The event turn out to be most disastrous for department. The staff made a terrible assumption in coming up with relief project and failed to plan wholesomely throughout the project.

To identity risk and assumption I believe it is imperative to asked all wild question of "what and if" and deliberate through so that you can at least get the gist of what might end result look like.

Thank you

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.

Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.

Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?

Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about _______ .

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about what could possible derail/delay project implementation.
I was once part of a very big project involving community resilience building which was delayed for about one year because new office bearers were elected into office and wanted the entire project re-written to suit certain demands. What saved us was that the donor, an international organization had already signed the necessary documents and so there was no going back. Still it took a lot of time and effort to convince those opposed to the project and bring them to our side.

one of the best ways that you can identify risks and assumptions is to deeply study your project goals because reaching that goals you have to pass through a long way during that long way you will face a lot of challenges and that challenges will shine light on you the real risks and assumption that you must take into account.

During project design, their is an assumption that the project beneficiaries and locations area accessible. This is not always the case especially for fragile contexts. I am referring to a project that was once envisaged to be implemented in "location withheld" that had to be re-designed because of access issues.

During one of our intervention carried out in one of the BAY States, there was a certain location that was that we couldn't assessed during the morning hours except from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. So this sudden event prolonged the duration of the intervention beyond the expected time frame. During the planning stage the situation was unforeseen and we had to make decision that addressed the situation we were on the location.

Risks and assumptions are the basis to avoid project failure. They help stakeholders start working towards any foreseen problems with response.

During a wash project, we planned to provide potable water for all the people in a village where we were implementing a project, but it happens that the population's estimation by the statistic of my country was not accurate, there were more people in this village and also people from other village came to get potable water in the village for which the project was targeted.

@LevensonBadio said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

During a wash project, we planned to provide potable water for all the people in a village where we were implementing a project, but it happens that the population's estimation by the statistic of my country was not accurate, there were more people in this village and also people from other village came to get potable water in the village for which the project was targeted.

There are two key characteristics of risks and assumptions. First, there must be some uncertainty to the event. If there is 100% chance of an event occurring, it is simply a fact. If there is a 0% chance of the event occurring, it is fiction. Neither are risks or assumptions.
Second, assumptions and risks are both outside the total control of the project team. If the event is within the control of the project team it is neither an assumption nor a risk. It should simply be managed to make it happen.

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.

Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.

Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?

On a particular health awareness talk we set out to educate people in a particular rural environment. The benefits of collecting mosquito nets from the health center in the community, to our greatest surprise the health center has been closed down.

Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about _______ .
-Possibility of going to a far distance to collect mosquito net.
-Possibility of the health center not having enough mosquito nets that will go round.

We do trainings in schools in northern part of Uganda. We had always thought that after securing the 'go ahead' letter from the ministry of Education we will be free to conduct our trainings anywhere in schools as long as the school administrators approve them. We were surprised by the directive of a municipal officer in one of the municipalities who halted us citing 'security threats' in our work; we had never thought that somebody could ever thing like that!! We had to first go through security clearances.....so so unbelievable!!

Some time back we were handling on of the projects and we had the assumption that the normal certification and licensing of the staff will be as it has been for the last decade but this was not to be so we were taken by surprise to learn that the board had changed the years and the rules regulating licensing of the profession. It was tough and we had to adjust very fast and refocus on the changes to avoid negative impact on the project.

Risks and Assumptions are difficult part of project design. Puntland Youth Associations Network planned a project to sensitize and educate on civic engagement and advocacy for their rights in political participation in 2018 at state level and we targeted the graduated from national and international universities who studies social sciences programes. However, to our surprise most of them had the mentality of tribalism and believed that they cannot face their traditional elders and leaders ask for such demand claiming that its obscene to their culture. We changed the strategy of forming a team of local youth and project consultants to meet the traditional elders instead of using only the local youth after receiving advocacy and civic engagement training. Due to unhealthy clan and tribalism most of them could not support their fellow youth contesting with old men and women.

Its very nice and important to identify risk and assumption timely in any project implementation. There was a time or an instance where we went to a village to address issue about Teenage pregnancy. We were so hopeful that since this program is free the number of turnout will be enormous. But to our surprise, the turn out was very low.Girl children didnt surface because their parent were not carried along, also many were not interested because no menu. Here we learnt something about envisaging this risk and we have proffer solution in form of mitigation it occurrence

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.

Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.

Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?

Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about _______ .

Logframes are helpful because it helps us set our goal, inputs, outputs, and outcomes, as well as, our risks and assumptions. Sometimes when we plan things we don't consider all of these elements which will influence our result. Thus, the result may falter due to a missing component. I believe the logframe helps us visualize this and enables us to think of each an every step necessary for our success. Identifying risk and assumptions is key since it tells us all the possibilities we don't want to hear. It gives us all the what ifs and the reasons why our goal may not succeed. However, it is due to this that risks and assumptions are important because if we don't consider these possibilities into our equation then we cannot plan countermeasures against them or ways to prevent them from happening. Also, it helps us be wary of what may happen which, in turn, urges us to be prepared.

I don't work for an organization but when I was part of an association in University, the president wanted to plan a beach day for the members. During the weekly President and VP meeting, we discussed the activity and the reasons why and why not we should do the beach day. He believed members would get more involved if we offered activities such as this, while I thought it was getting us away from our goal - which was to give members skills that they could showcase on their CV during the next job fair. While going through the module, I realized that what we did in the meeting unknowingly was one of these logframes. He basically did the project summary since he was in favor of the beach day while I did the risks and assumptions since I was against it. One of the risks and assumptions that I gave him that shocked him was creating a relief of responsibility document and the weather forecast because, even if it was still the end of summer, the chance of rain was possible.

From this experience, I learned that it is wise to scope all possible alternatives and even if one is biased or doesn't agree with them because they might come in handy later on.

For me, thinking about the worst of outcomes is the easiest way to think of risks and assumptions.

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.

Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.
It can be therefore it is important to know the project so that the risks and assumptions can be identified.
Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?
We were doing a regional project and the assumption was that the youth from the different countries would respond to the project in like manner
Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about all of what could go wrong and all the evidence we have_ .

I am part of a volunteering organisation, where our biggest and most critical input is volunteers themselves, providing the manpower for the project. Recently, our number of volunteers has dropped, making it more challenging to carry out the projects that previously we had taken for granted.

Our assumption here was clearly "the number of volunteers joining the program will remain sufficient to carry out the program." Although we were able to adapt and responded to the situation without damaging our relationship with our partners, it was a good lesson in considering the inputs as a risk, whereas previously it had been seen as fairly constant.

@AMAGAJU said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

once risks are identified, it is a better way to avoid all the negative impacts, so identifying risks is the crucial parts for the project to be successfull

That's true @AMAGAJU, it's very important to identify risks and assumptions in advance to avoid surprise in your project implementation.

@ifelix said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

During one of our intervention carried out in one of the BAY States, there was a certain location that was that we couldn't assessed during the morning hours except from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. So this sudden event prolonged the duration of the intervention beyond the expected time frame. During the planning stage the situation was unforeseen and we had to make decision that addressed the situation we were on the location.

Hello @ifelix, hope you are doing well, could you share with us What you learned from that experience that could be useful to other learners taking this course? We would really appreciate it

@nam1985 said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Risks and assumptions are the basis to avoid project failure. They help stakeholders start working towards any foreseen problems with response.

Okay @nam1985, I agree with you, Identifying risks and assumptions also could show your potential supporters or your donor that you have real knowledge of the situation in the community.

@Loraini said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about all possibilities of what will negatively affect the outputs, inputs and outcome of your project. It can vary from natural, social, political, cultural, financial causes. In one of our project, one of the risks that the project had to deal with was the unpredicted category 5 cyclone that encountered the project just when the project had started making it difficult for communities to commit because they were faced with problems that needed urgent attention such as improving social services, health and basic needs.

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about all possibilities of what will negatively affect the outputs, inputs and outcome of your project. It can vary from natural, social, political, cultural, financial causes. In one of our project, one of the risks that the project had to deal with was the unpredicted category 5 cyclone that encountered the project just when the project had started making it difficult for communities to commit because they were faced with problems that needed urgent attention such as improving social services, health and basic needs.

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:
I use to work in aircraft maintenance industry before international development and we use to perform FMECA process to explore all failure possibilities. Now I keep this spirit to envision what could be wrong in the deployment of a project that has been design from assumption or initial problem to solve

We assumed that the project would produce 1500kg of Raw Cashewnuts at the Cashew Processing factory, unfornately, it has never been possible even to reach 60% of the planned goal. The assumptions came from the research about types of machines we would use and number of people to work at the factory. We didnot consider the differences that exist in the country.
From this I learned that it is always good to have thorough research on the issue and have plan B and C.

@ArnaudSegla said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:
I use to work in aircraft maintenance industry before international development and we use to perform FMECA process to explore all failure possibilities. Now I keep this spirit to envision what could be wrong in the deployment of a project that has been design from assumption or initial problem to solve

For sure it is real very important to have that spirit, I can assume that the situation continues and helps to reduce ocurrence of accidents. It may help aswell in development projects , to avoid project failures.

@PiliraniTembo said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

We assumed that the project would produce 1500kg of Raw Cashewnuts at the Cashew Processing factory, unfornately, it has never been possible even to reach 60% of the planned goal. The assumptions came from the research about types of machines we would use and number of people to work at the factory. We didnot consider the differences that exist in the country.
From this I learned that it is always good to have thorough research on the issue and have plan B and C.

Yeah @PiliraniTembo, that's why it's very crucial to identify risks and assumptions in advance, because it shows you what you have to look out for during the implementation of your project and what could be possible to block your intervention.

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:
Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.
Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.
Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?
We had planned to have trained 100 youth by the end of the first

We had planned that we would be training all the enrolled youth into the vocational skills but not everyone that came our way allowed to participate in the vocational programm.

we didnt get all the required funds that we needed hence we had to solicit for funds from different sources and we restrained alot in completing year one because we didnt get the necessary funds and some of our participants had to drop out.but we enrolled them back after a break.

To identify risks and assumptions ,it is helpful to think about the unforeseen events and things we can not have control over.while conducting catering skills development for vulnerable girls,we experienced challenges whereby the girls come not because of the skills they will gain in catering but they come because they get money they do not pay much attention to skills.Again since skill development is combined with restaurant for attachment and practicals,the waitress end up eloping with male clients. this are risks we did not have thought of or control over.

To identify risks and assumptions, it's helpful to think about every single step in your project. For example, if you are progressing in your project, update your project status with new risks and assumptions . As a result, you will have a clear vision of your project and how to avoid these risks before they happened

While I don't have an example from experience, I can envision an assumption that might derail a project. For my sample project that seeks to create a consortium to ensure access to education and lifelong learning everywhere, it might be the case that some places would not want to be a part of such a network. It might be hard to believe that this is true, but there are places that remain quite apart from global enterprises for many reasons. To mitigate this, the mission statement can be adjusted to reflect that 'in all possible areas ... education and lifelong learning will be made available' or something to that effect. So, as the prompt suggests, "to identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about: whether or not you might get participants to support your mission, even if it seems to benefit with no costs or risks.

Cheers,
Elizabeth

I was involved in entertaining the participants of the Nigerian Mathematical Society conference in 2017 at University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria. Base on the assumption that the Vice-chancellor of the University and Governor of the state have promised to support the confernce and the money received from the participant registration will cater for the conference. We went ahead to draw a budget and contracted a caterer for the conference. Few days to the conference, we received support from the Vice -Chancellor which was very low to our expectation. No support from the Governor of the State and the participant registration fee cannot cater for the conference. This led us to promise to pay the caterer immediately after the conference. To our greatest surprise, the participant registration fee cannot even pay 50 percent of the caterer Bill's due to other demands involved in the conference organization. At the end, the caterer sue us to court since we couldn't pay her money.
I learnt that risk should be taken into consideration whenever you are planning for an event. Also your project design should not base only on assumptions.

When identifying risks and assumptions, it's important to think about external threats to the project's mission and activities, not just assumptions made during project activities. The project I work on was developed as a beekeeping project to increase income among rural farmers. However, in the first year of the project, the invasive Varroa mite caused massive problems because so many beekeepers lost their hives. The focus of the project had to change from increasing honey and wax harvest skills to increasing varroa skills.

With the starting of our recycling plant we where donated a baler.
We assumed the following:
1 - it would arrive as soon as we had our facility ready
2 - The machine would work flawlessly.

What we learnt is that (1) donors may also have challenges on their side that could affect your plans and workflow. As a result our baler only arrived 3 months after we had the facility ready. Secondly (2), the machine that they donated to us was a second machine that stood out in the elements for over two year... This means that we had to service the machine and replace some of the perished parts. These are all expenses that we did not budget for and obviously cost us in time aswell. I believe that if we addressed our risks and assumptions before hand, we could have made provisions for these factors and be more proactive then reactive. Or simply, it would have made our lives alot easier!!

Identifying risk assumptions its better to think about the end results. Good risk identification will create good project communication thus good decisions will be made

I was part of a road construction project funded by the government. During planning, we based our cash inflows on the fact that we would receive payments for work done in utmost three months after the requests. This meant that we needed to secure at least 3 months if our cash flow requirements at project commencement. However, to our surprise, we spent over a year without receiving any payments from government amidst all the site expenses we had to clear.

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.

Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.

Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?

Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about _______ .

To identify risks and assumptions, it is important to critically think about any existing pre-conditions. When assumptions do not hold, then they become risks. In my organization, we were sub-granting to partners distributed in in 6 Counties in Africa because we are a pan-African's Women network. We invited the partners to an inception meeting to introduce the new project. Later on when doing due diligence and organizational assessment, we found out that one of the organizations was actually not a registered NGO. We had to keenly followup the registration status before drawing any contractual agreements not to mention that our Donor was very cautious about our partners being NGO and Women Rights Organizational-registered entities

Risk and assumption is one of the major challenge in project implementation, in time past we organised evaluation feed back meetings in a particular location not knowing that the community is over floded with water, due to the rain fall the event could not hold. We had to go back and re_organised the event for another day.

hi, I am Lukito Aldo from Tanzania I

HI, I am lukito Aldo From Tanzania I invite you to be on the same group for discussion of this course my whatssapp no is +255767539249 for easy communication

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.

Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.

Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?

Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about _______ .

Part of my project design is that the kids who are beneficiaries of the education outreach portion of our organization will in turn be willing to participate in beach clean-up activities around the country. We are therefore assuming that the kids would be interested, willing and able to do so, and the risk is that they do not show up, and we do not have enough volunteers to participate in an effective clean-up initiative.

For-seeing this, a way to mitigate the risk would be to have a permanent set of paid workers on hand for the initiatives, so that regardless of volunteers, we have hands to get the work done during clean-up initiatives.

Risks and assumptions is the very important part of the project. It communicates circumstances that may negatively affect the project plan, and prevent the achievement of the project goals. Good risks identification is the basis of risk management .

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:
To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about because All projects have risks. If a potential risk of the project is not identified early, then the project will be at a high risk to complete as per schedule, within budget and to meet the expected quality. One of the challenges faced by team members today is not having a sample or general risk list to refer to when identifying the project risk and this might affect the project at hand.

@Unaisi said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.

Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.

Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?

Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about _______ .

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about all the potential impacts that can affect the project and plan ahead what relevant mitigation measures can be applied. I was once involved in a project where we had to rebuild the project just after a year of establishment as it was destroyed by a category 3 cyclone. The rebuilding process was very slow as the community were more focused on rebuilding their lives and their homes rather than committing themselves to the project.

@Unaisi ,What did you learn from that experience that could be useful to others taking this course?

To identify risks and assumptions, it is best to think of the outputs and outcomes in order to make a good assumption and measure the risks.

It is helpful to think about risk and assumptions before project start because this will reduce project failure rate and provide a foundation for developing risk mitigation strategies and contingency plans.

One time we planned for an activity with an assumption that the budget allocated would be sufficient. Unfortunately we ran out of money and we had to stall the project as we sourced for more funding. We learnt that its very important to prepare a good activity budget and stick to it even if the activity been implemented looks small in nature

In one of our hygiene promotion activities we did produce and distributed household latrine slabs to the beneficiaries to augment the software component of passing information about the need to stop open defecation. The community had no household latrines and we assumed that with proper awareness the community would embrace the project. The idea was, while we produce and distribute the latrine slabs, the beneficiaries were to dig their pits and use locally available materials for constructing superstructure. We planned to produce and distribute 250 household latrine slabs, but the rate of take up was low, by the time the project was ending only 150 households had showed interest and utilized the slabs. In our subsequent project and based on the experience of the previous project we reduced the number of slabs and assumed that the next community we were going to supply the slabs would also be slow in embracing it. Ths time around we budgeted with 100 slabs, to our dismay this particular community showed interest in the project and few months into the project all the slabs had been distributed and still they needed more yet we had exhausted money in that budget line.

It is very important to think of all cases scenarios to identify risks & assumptions ranging from location, culture, religion practice, government policy, law, beneficiaries socioeconomic status etc,

Risk assumption arises due to human biases and taking norms are always normal happening. Where objective analysis and deeply interrogating underlying issues that may aggregate, risk factors can be severely reduced in project design

While preparing for a field work trip at Water Collective international to go and monitor one of our local community water project, we did not take into account the risk of increase in transport due to bad roads in the rainy season since we were calculating the same price as in the dry season when roads are moderately fine.
Due to lack of assumptions, we ran short of money while we were in the field.

It was in May 2018 when our organization, as part of our quest to gain financial freedom for women, organized a three-day (Wednesday to Friday) cosmetics training for 30 women beneficiaries in a community. The organizers had talked to the care taker of the community social centre where the training was to take place. Without considering the risk of loosing the place, the team did not look for another center. The team moved to the community on Tuesday only to be told the social centre had been booked for a funeral activities. The stress the team went through to arrange for another place taught us to never leave anything to chance.
Had it not been for a hotel's conference Hall that was free for the period, we would have had to stop the programme all together, and sums of money thrown away.
Failure to consider such activities as the funeral also caused almost 40% of beneficiaries not turning up for the program.

It is the best thing to consider all possible risks and assumptions when planning for any project

I remember one day during the meeting of de fluoridation of water In Naivasha we had several meetings to strategize on way forward and every time we had a meeting we invited about 50 members but in every meeting only 25 turned out and we assume this is the number we will be working with. Towards the end we had now to finalize and we decided to hold a party to thank all those that have been coming. So our budget was only to take care of about 30 members ,this was addition of 5 people from the one that used to come to the meeting. Everything was good and we were now looking forward for the party. On the material party day we assemble as usual and the 25 members were there .as we get along we were surprised to see people continued coming and after 2 hours there were around 200 people. This gave us a lot of headache as our assumption was surpassed by 170 people. hence we were not able to hold the party as planned .we fail in our assumption.

we do alot of mistakes by not doing our home work on risks and assumptions.
Thats is a great work .

@Loraini said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about all possibilities of what will negatively affect the outputs, inputs and outcome of your project. It can vary from natural, social, political, cultural, financial causes. In one of our project, one of the risks that the project had to deal with was the unpredictable category 5 cyclone that encountered the project just when the project had started making it difficult for communities to commit because they were faced with problems that needed urgent attention such as improving social services, health and basic needs. The project had to spend some money to unplanned activities to help these communities back on their feet.

@Framunga said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

@Loraini said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about all possibilities of what will negatively affect the outputs, inputs and outcome of your project. It can vary from natural, social, political, cultural, financial causes. In one of our project, one of the risks that the project had to deal with was the unpredictable category 5 cyclone that encountered the project just when the project had started making it difficult for communities to commit because they were faced with problems that needed urgent attention such as improving social services, health and basic needs. The project had to spend some money to unplanned activities to help these communities back on their feet.

this is good keep up

@emmanuelaboagyeduah said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

It was in May 2018 when our organization, as part of our quest to gain financial freedom for women, organized a three-day (Wednesday to Friday) cosmetics training for 30 women beneficiaries in a community. The organizers had talked to the care taker of the community social centre where the training was to take place. Without considering the risk of loosing the place, the team did not look for another center. The team moved to the community on Tuesday only to be told the social centre had been booked for a funeral activities. The stress the team went through to arrange for another place taught us to never leave anything to chance.
Had it not been for a hotel's conference Hall that was free for the period, we would have had to stop the programme all together, and sums of money thrown away.
Failure to consider such activities as the funeral also caused almost 40% of beneficiaries not turning up for the program.

It is the best thing to consider all possible risks and assumptions when planning for any project

This Is good Emanuel.great work

@joykirinda said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

I was part of a road construction project funded by the government. During planning, we based our cash inflows on the fact that we would receive payments for work done in utmost three months after the requests. This meant that we needed to secure at least 3 months if our cash flow requirements at project commencement. However, to our surprise, we spent over a year without receiving any payments from government amidst all the site expenses we had to clear.

Yes risk and Assumptions that every thing will go as planned but what it fail.
Nice work keep up

I was part of the project to create awareness about cultural sexual practices in the rural areas of zambia, our were assumption and risk was that maybe the community would not accept our awareness on cultural sexual practice since has been part of them for ages. maybe parents would not allow there children to attend our meetings.

For private sector engagement, when the company changed/revised its policy differently from the intended outcome we designed and generated.

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about external context and do the formative research to look for evidence to support your output/outcome.

Its important to put yourself in the scenario and think of the events that could happen

Also environment scanning is very important.

a good way to overcome the negative effects of risk and assumptions is to research about similar projects done earlier and see challenges they faced and how they overcame them. In addition identify and write down the risks and assumptions for each stage starting from the bottom until the impact stage

I really like this section, we have to seen the different mindset of people on asked question. By reading all their comments we can clear our confusion. Risk and Assumption can clearly identifies the negative aspects that can take happen in any project. Before launching our project some of our sources said our competitor try to make a deal with our investors that a very critical and difficult to handle.

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about all the potential impacts and understand all events and conditions that are unforeseeable which can affect the project and plan. Last year i had a project where we had to rebuild the project just after a months of preparation, the project didn't happen since no participate showed up. The team were so disappointed and its discouraged most of the member resulted to some opting out. If we could have foresee and come up with risks and assumption we could not end up being disappointed.

That was so great that you and your team discovered risks and assumption prier the project begins.
If I may ask,

1. was there any unforeseen risks you came around? e.g unexpected number of people attended the tutorials?
2. what were the outcome of the tutorial?

@shamsuddeen said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Following this module, I realized the importance of identifying risks and assumption during M&E plan, because it gives you to me , a prediction of the the reverse of you objective or I would say the reverse of your project summary.
Thus identifying risk and assumption is an import part of M&E plan for an effective project.

I remembered vividly when me and my friends were trying to organize a tutorial in my community at Jos North Plateau State Nigeria. After all have been said, about how we intended running the tutorial, one us asked the questions below:

What if we couldn't get a conducive place to give the tutorials?
What if we don't have money to buy chalk?

With the above questions posed, we needed to rethink of ways to solve these problems in case they arise.

That was so great that you and your team discovered risks and assumption prier the project begins.
If I may ask,

was there any unforeseen risks you came around? e.g unexpected number of people attended the tutorials?
what were the outcome of the tutorial?

with Saving Lives project, after my organisation had intensively trained targeted health staff on digital health data collection and reporting, to our greatest surprised the health staff were unable to collect health data and report from the digital tablets (Samsung Tablets) to the dhis2 for the first two months of reporting after we had trained them. the reason according to some of them they were novice in using smart screen tablets, and other said it was another burden to their already overloaded duties at the health facility. this unexpected incident nearly cost the project outputs, outcomes and impacts.

My experience with this event was that: I never expected 21st century educated health workers scared of using smart-tablets/phones after intensive training on how to collect and report health data. Secondly, I did realized and empathized with them the additional job responsibility added to their already overloaded health facility work. the third experienced was, we had to conduct refresher training and incentive for monthly data collection and reporting which would had cost implication to the project budget, scope and time.
The tips in identifying risks and assumptions should be to ask the following questions:
What would go wrong that would affect the outputs, outcomes and impacts of the project?
Is there any unforeseen event that might prevent you from providing the inputs of the project?
If you actually provides the required inputs , you would be sure that these inputs will lead to the ouputs of the pr

In designing and planning our ongoing Sayana Press injectable contraceptive rollout, we thought we could meet and secure the buy-in of identified Ministry of Health stakeholders in one day due to the timing of the project. Surprisingly, we couldn't as some were not to be found, some couldn't take their call or respond to their email and some others rescheduled our meeting. As a result, our project kick start date was very much delayed and plan altered. We actually assumed we wrongly and perhaps, should have done proper risk assessement of stakholders meeting activity part of the project. Great lessons learned!

To identify risks and assumptions, it is very important to consider the things that pose as a threat to the project at large. In some occasions, assumptions may culminate to threats/risks. a risk is anything that threatens the success of a project. An assumption on the other hand are some of the things we fail to take keen note of. In a certain project we are working on in our project, we assumed that there will be no political issues and there will be stability. Along the way however, some of the countries in which we were to launch the roll-out experienced turbulence in the political environment. We therefore had to postpone the training to a later date after things had cooled off. We had assumed that the given country had no political issues f concern that would affect the project.

During a vaccination campaign, we assumed that it was a dry season and hence pastoralists will be settled around major watering points hence it will be easier to locate them. unknown to us it had rained some 50 Km away from our target site and livestock has already started migrating to those areas tat received rain.

@Arithi said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

During a vaccination campaign, we assumed that it was a dry season and hence pastoralists will be settled around major watering points hence it will be easier to locate them. unknown to us it had rained some 50 Km away from our target site and livestock has already started migrating to those areas tat received rain.

We had to reschedule our program to allow the pastoralists to migrate to these new sites.

@Framunga said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

@joykirinda said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

I was part of a road construction project funded by the government. During planning, we based our cash inflows on the fact that we would receive payments for work done in utmost three months after the requests. This meant that we needed to secure at least 3 months if our cash flow requirements at project commencement. However, to our surprise, we spent over a year without receiving any payments from government amidst all the site expenses we had to clear.

Yes risk and Assumptions that every thing will go as planned but what it fail.
Nice work keep up

This is
usually a reality with Governments. They receive funding from NGOs and other donors but hoard the money until the project life is extended. For emergency programs like livestock vaccination, we have to be careful on the planning bearing in mind that delays caused can result into a disaster if a disease outbreak occurs

@apostledavid58 said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

I was once part of a LoveLife Ngo tram and we headed to rural communities to distribute condoms and pass on some sex-health information...we had roughly estimated a turn up of less that 100 participants and the local community hall. But to pur Suprise we had ran out of Flyers and condom packs to give away....

great move

@jkurama said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

We hard a project to evaluate the influence of bribery to voters decision to vote a particular candidate. We went through all the approval processes, but in one of the districts, the district internal security officer even after meeting with him and the District police officer and all the district officials and all approved. After a few weeks of work he decided to withdraw his approval and chase us from the district. We went to other districts where were welcome but but he put announcements over the radio and called other security officers to chase us to.
After getting all the approvals we did not anticipate this, so we hard to recall our officers from the field and we hard fresh engagements with these officials and provided all the (un)necessary documentations that they wanted but the underlying issue was that he had engaged in bribing voters and he feared that he would be found out. we re-assured him that the information will be held in strict confidence and that we do not attache names in the data and we were allowed to continue with work.

good insight

At Water Collective International, we went to monitor one of our community Water projects in Cameroon, precisely in the south West Region without taking into conisderation that it is the rainy season when roads are generally bad.
upon arrival at motor cycle station, we didcovered that the transport fair has increased. We tried to negociate to no avail so we were forced to spent the night at the village trying to get in contact with the progrm manager.
This finally affected the planned budget of the field work.
because of that, we were one day late to our planned program.

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about overall goals that the project plans to achieve.

A situation that almost cause my Organization not meeting the deadline for the submission of an ongoing project at that time was that, we had assumed that the goods(input) to be distributed at the tail end of the program will be ready for distribution . Unfortunately, the ship that was to bring the goods sunk in the ocean and many stories developed from there like we have to pay afresh for us to get the goods we initially ordered for and so on.
We were only lucky enough to get the same goods purchased from our local market here but of cause was expensive. So if we had looked at the negative side effect of the assumption we made from the beginning, we will not have fallen into such situation.

So my take is that as their are positive assumptions, their are also negative once as well so to be on the safe side, we must plan for both in order to meet the over goal of the project.

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about overall goals that the project plans to achieve.

A situation that almost cause my Organization not meeting the deadline for the submission of an ongoing project at that time was that, we had assumed that the goods(input) to be distributed at the tail end of the program will be ready for distribution. Unfortunately, the ship that was to bring the goods sunk in the ocean and many stories developed from there like we have to pay afresh for us to get the goods we initially ordered for and so on.
We were only lucky enough to get the same goods purchased from our local market here but of cause was expensive. So if we had looked at the negative side effect of the assumption we made from the beginning, we will not have fallen into such situation.
So my take is that as there are positive assumptions, there are also negative once as well so to be on the safe side, we must plan for both in order to meet the over goal of the project.

in order to identify risk and assumptions, its important to look at things strategically.
strategic way of reasoning ensure that one look out for the worst in the cause of implementing the project while at same time, making a holistic step to prevent these imaginary risk and assumption from occurring ahead of time.
thus, strategic reasoning or way of looking of things give us the opportunity to expect the worst, thereby giving us the opportunity to plan ahead and to make other alternatives in case of the unexpected and unplanned should occur.

How about connecting risks into the set of indicators of a weak planning and design of the project? The more you have risks, the lower your planning strategy and designing techniques? as a part of another evaluation and assessment of evaluation?;)

@RCPparticipant said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

@Course_Operations said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

Respond to this prompt after completing the content in Module 2.
Correctly identifying assumptions and risks ahead of time is one of the most difficult parts of project design.
Share one instance from your organization when a risk or assumption took the team by surprise. What did you learn from this experience? What tips for identifying risks and assumptions can you share with your peers?
Sample Post: To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about _______ .

Despite the best of planning, some unexpected events can affect the outcome, such as adverse weather conditions that prompt women to rush to cultivate their fields instead of participating in the planned project event.

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about how local population would resolve the problem.

Thank you for sharing your ideas!

I Remember in my organization, we were to conducted sensitization on defender of religious cultural pluralism training for Media, the training schedule was for 10th of December, but invitation were sent 9th of December most of the stake holder we were expected did not turn up, some sent there representative which make us almost not to met the objective of the training because most the representative can not contribute much like the stake holder.

@apostledavid58 said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

I was once part of a LoveLife Ngo tram and we headed to rural communities to distribute condoms and pass on some sex-health information...we had roughly estimated a turn up of less that 100 participants and the local community hall. But to pur Suprise we had ran out of Flyers and condom packs to give away...

@apostledavid58 said in Module 2 Discussion: Risks and Assumptions:

I was once part of a LoveLife Ngo tram and we headed to rural communities to distribute condoms and pass on some sex-health information...we had roughly estimated a turn up of less that 100 participants and the local community hall. But to pur Suprise we had ran out of Flyers and condom packs to give away....

1 there could a possibility of the team given each participant more than one flyer and condom.
2 the participant can collect flyers and condoms more than once.
3 the organization should had make a research on the effective used of condom in the community

From the initial stage, it is very important to foresee expected or unexpected risks and assumptions. It needs analytical thinking to determine and estimate the weather of current or unexpected situation or condition. To avoid unpleasant results we should evaluate our target beneficiaries, current condition. to do this, first, we should conduct pre-assessment to identify and determine all risks that should be happened towards each stage (starting form activities till the impact). In the project's budget line must be some money or other necessary resources to reduce risks.
From this module, it is clear, designing the project's log frame in the right way, gives a chance to make a good M&E plan. To be on the right track.

To identify risks and assumptions, it is helpful to think about situation that might prevent the project activities from reaching it intended goal. this activities could be weather condition, political instability, culture, and social activities of our project beneficiaries and targeted communities.