Technician on Duty at IRCS
Blood Centre, NHQ
011-23711551,
011-23359338
pcm
Project Cycle Management (with Result Based Approach) Workshops
Why PCM ? –
The importance of Project Cycle Management – PCM- (with Result Based Approach) for any organization for effective & efficient project implementation is a well-established fact all over the world. Lack of application of PCM while implementing the projects can lead to disproportionate use of resources, failures in achieving results as well as losing the credibility of an organization.
Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS), National Headquarters (NHQ), with the support of ICRC, initiated a comprehensive intervention to improve IRCS branches’ program implementation.
Empowering IRCS Through Expert-Led PCM Excellence
This initiative is a game-changer: creating a dedicated team of 10–15 trained IRCS professionals and volunteers—carefully selected from various states and NHQ, across genders and backgrounds—to become champions of Project Cycle Management (PCM).
The Vision:
To reduce IRCS’s dependency on external partners for project planning & monitoring, and establish SOPs of quality programming—uniform, consistent, and results-driven.
To reduce IRCS’s dependency on external partners for project planning & monitoring, and establish SOPs of quality programming—uniform, consistent, and results-driven.
- Focus on assessment, planning, monitoring & evaluation
- Interactive, scenario-based learning methodology
- Gender-diverse, culturally inclusive participant groups
- Real-life project sharing & peer-to-peer learning
“This is probably the most important learning we have had during our association with Red Cross.”
– Participant, post 1st PCM Workshop
3 workshops. 57 participants. 25 branches. 1 shared vision.
IRCS is building its own PCM force for the future.
All the participants acknowledged the need and importance of PCM capacity building and categorically mentioned that such initiative should have been taken up much earlier. They recognized that the learnings from the PCM workshop would be relevant to them, irrespective of the type and thematic of the project/intervention they are involved in. An anonymous evaluation at the end of each of the 03 workshops indicated that participants’ knowledge and skills have significantly improved. Around 90% of the participants rated ‘excellent’ while remaining rated ‘good’ for – content, structure & facilitators – of the workshop. The evaluation also revealed that the progress of the participants for 4 objectives of the workshop (ability to define PCM, ability to recall & explain key PCM components, capacity to apply PCM in existing & new projects and ability to strengthen district branches on PCM) was from very low or low (at the beginning of the workshop) to medium/high/very high (at the end of the workshop).
What next after Workshops?
Getting selected in the IRCS PCM experts’ group is a huge honor and recognition. We will contribute per best of our abilities in improving IRCS programming throughout the country’’ –Raj Sarma, Naresh Gohil, Sanir Dolas, Debrati Mishra and Prachi Bhatnagar –in a group discussion after getting selected in IRCS PCM experts’ team .
The workshops were only the beginning of a comprehensive intervention to build the capacity of IRCS branches in PCM. The post workshop action plan includes –
1. Percolation of PCM knowledge & skills down to the district branch level,
2. Ensuring that PCM is integrated for key programs of IRCS at various levels,
3. The approach is sustained and becomes standard for all future programs/intervention of IRCS whether they are supported by partners or not
4. Regular monitoring and consultations between NHQ and branches and also with ICRC towards continued used of PCM approach in existing and new programs/interventions.
In the long run, the enhanced knowledge and skills will help the participants and branches to develop better projects to be submitted to the funding agencies. It will result in improving – recognition, visibility, trust (by community and government) and fund generation of IRCS.
If adopted consistently, the PCM with result based approach will help any organization (in this case, IRCS) interventions to move from being activity oriented to result oriented. By initiating a focused intervention on PCM capacity building, IRCS NHQ (with support of ICRC) has shown a great intent to ensure relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and other quality criteria in any IRCS intervention. Feedback and observations from all the three workshops prove that such an initiative was highly needed and IRCS NHQ together with ICRC will continue to make sustained efforts under PCM capacity building of various IRCS state & district branches.
