Scoping the project

1Project, programme and the role of the project manager

A project is a temporary endeavour, with a beginning and an end, that produces a unique result (for example rehabilitating 20 water points in 12 months). A programme groups several related projects that serve the same broader objective.

The project manager does not do everything personally: they organise the work, coordinate the teams and support services (logistics, finance, HR), monitor progress and report to management, the donor and communities.

2The phases of the project cycle

Sector guides (such as PMD Pro) describe successive phases, with monitoring, evaluation and control running throughout the project:

1. Identification and definition: analysis of needs, context and options; intervention logic (logframe).
2. Set-up: project charter, team, governance, kick-off meeting.
3. Planning: detailed work plan, budget, procurement, risks, monitoring and evaluation, communication.
4. Implementation: carrying out activities, managing the team and partners.
5. Closure: final delivery, reports, handover, lessons learned, administrative close-out.

A decision taken at the start costs little to change; the same decision changed at the end of the project is very expensive. Hence the importance of scoping.

3Stakeholders

A stakeholder is any person or organisation that influences the project or is affected by it: communities, local authorities, donor, partners, clusters, team, suppliers.

The influence / interest matrix helps decide how to work with each one:

Affected communities often have little formal power but maximum interest: accountability requires consulting them and reporting back to them.

4The triple constraint

Every project balances three linked parameters: scope (what is delivered), schedule and cost, with quality at the centre. If one changes, at least one other must move: delivering more latrines with the same budget requires more time, or reduces quality.

The project charter (one to two pages) sets these parameters, the objective, the deliverables, the main risks, the budget and who decides what. It is approved by management before planning begins.

5From needs assessment to intervention logic

Scoping does not start with the charter: it starts with the question "what problem, for whom, and why us?". A poorly identified project will never be rescued by good planning. The identification and design phase turns needs data into an intervention logic that can be defended before a donor, a cluster and the communities.

Step 1: start from existing data before producing new data

Before launching an assessment, the project manager gathers what already exists: the country's Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), cluster sector analyses, the findings of the Multi-Cluster/Sector Initial Rapid Assessment (MIRA) if the crisis is recent, displacement tracking data (IOM DTM), food security reports (IPC analysis), and other organisations' assessments available through the cluster. The Joint Intersectoral Analysis Framework (JIAF) provides needs severity by area and population group: a project that targets a severity 2 area while the neighbouring area is classified 4 will have to explain why.

Field rule: every additional assessment takes up the time of affected people. "Assessment fatigue" is a real accountability problem. Collect only what is missing, and coordinate it with the cluster.

Step 2: the targeted complementary assessment

• Secondary data: a 3 to 5-day desk review, summarised in a 2 to 4-page note (context, population, needs by sector, existing capacities, information gaps).
• Primary data: key informant interviews (authorities, leaders, women leaders, health workers, teachers), focus group discussions separated by sex and age, direct observation, technical measurements (water point yield, water quality, condition of infrastructure), household survey if needed.
• Minimum disaggregation: sex, age (brackets compatible with the cluster), disability (Washington Group Questions), status (IDP, returnee, host community).
• Protection and gender analysis: access risks, risks linked to the location of facilities (lighting, distance, privacy), power dynamics. It shapes the design, not just the report.
• Market analysis if the cash option is feasible: availability of goods, prices, traders' capacity to absorb demand, physical access to markets.

Step 3: analyse the problem

The problem tree puts the core problem at the trunk (for example "high incidence of diarrhoeal disease among IDPs in Kalema"), the causes at the roots (insufficient quantity of water, water contaminated at the point of consumption, open defecation, no handwashing at critical times) and the effects in the branches (morbidity, malnutrition, health expenditure). It is built in a workshop with the team, partners and community representatives. Turned around, it becomes an objective tree: each cause becomes a result to achieve.

You never tackle every root. The analysis of options keeps those that match the organisation's mandate, its added value, the gaps identified by the cluster, the likely budget and feasibility (access, season, timeframes). The roots set aside must be covered by other actors or listed as assumptions.

Step 4: formalise the intervention logic

The theory of change explains the "how and why": if we do X, then Y will happen, because of Z (causal assumption). The logical framework condenses it into a matrix required by most donors:

The vertical logic is tested from the bottom up: if the activities are carried out and the assumptions hold, are the results achieved? If the results are achieved and the assumptions hold, is the specific objective achieved? An assumption judged both very likely to be false and decisive is a "killer assumption": the design has to be revised, not the assumption written in the box.

Step 5: align with standards

The intervention logic must show that it aims for recognised standards. For a WASH project, the Sphere minimum standards give precise benchmarks: at least 15 litres per person per day for drinking, cooking and hygiene; a maximum of 250 people per tap (flow of 7.5 L/min), 500 per hand pump (17 L/min) and 400 per open well; a water point less than 500 metres from the dwelling; queuing time of less than 30 minutes; one latrine per 50 people in the initial phase, then one per 20 as soon as possible; latrines less than 50 metres from shelters and at least 30 metres from groundwater sources; free residual chlorine of 0.2 to 0.5 mg/L at the point of delivery, with higher values recommended during diarrhoeal disease outbreaks. The Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) adds quality and accountability commitments: a response that is appropriate, effective, strengthens local capacities, is based on communication and participation, and has complaints mechanisms.

The national cluster often adapts these benchmarks (cluster indicators, minimum packages, reference costs). The project manager should use the cluster's indicators as much as possible: this makes reporting easier (4W/5W tool) and allows comparison between partners.

6The project charter in detail and governance

The charter is the project's internal contract. It formally authorises the start, gives the project manager authority and sets the scope against which they will be judged. In many NGOs it takes the form of a project launch sheet approved by the country director, drawn up from the proposal accepted by the donor and the signed agreement.

Contents of a complete charter

Read the agreement before writing the charter

The classic mistake of a newly arrived project manager is to work from the proposal without reading the agreement and its annexes. Yet it is the general conditions that determine what will be checked during an audit. The main institutional donors share common features:

• Eligibility period: only expenditure incurred between the start and end dates is eligible, unless there is an express retroactivity clause.
• Budget flexibility: transfers between budget headings are allowed without prior approval up to a certain threshold set in the agreement; beyond that, a formal amendment is required. For US funding subject to 2 CFR 200, section 200.308 governs the revisions that require prior approval (change in scope or objectives, change in key personnel, significant transfers between cost categories).
• Procurement rules: competition thresholds, origin rules, exclusion lists and sanctions screening.
• Indirect costs: for European Union humanitarian aid, a capped percentage of eligible direct costs is set by the partnership (around 7%); for US funding, a negotiated rate (NICRA) or a de minimis rate provided for in the regulations; United Nations agencies apply their own rates in partnership agreements.
• Reports: interim, final, financial; deadlines (for example 120 calendar days after the end for the final report under 2 CFR 200.344, three months for many European donors).
• Visibility: logo and communication obligations, with a possible waiver for security reasons, to be requested in writing.

Governance: who decides what

Clear governance prevents every decision from going up to the country director or, conversely, decisions that commit the organisation from being taken alone in the field. It is formalised in three elements.

1. The steering committee: programme coordinator (chair), project manager, finance manager, logistics manager, MEAL focal point, local partner representative. A monthly 60 to 90-minute meeting, based on a one-page dashboard. It rules on significant variances, approves internal change requests and decides on escalation to the donor.
2. The delegation of authority matrix: signature and commitment thresholds (for example purchase orders up to EUR 5,000 signed by the project manager, up to EUR 25,000 by the coordinator, above that by the country director), recruitment authority, authority to modify the work plan.
3. The review schedule: weekly team meeting, monthly budget review with finance (budget versus actuals and forecast), quarterly risk review, formal mid-term review.

The kick-off meeting

It is held within the first two weeks after signature. Half a day is enough if it is well prepared. Typical agenda: recap of the context and intervention logic; walk-through of the contractual obligations (procurement, visibility, reporting, eligibility) by the finance manager; presentation of the milestones and the provisional critical path; allocation of roles; major risks; upcoming deadlines. The minutes, with decisions and action points, are circulated within 48 hours. A separate, shorter kick-off session is held with the partner and another with the local authorities.

A project that starts without the support services having read the agreement starts with ineligible expenditure in the making. The internal kick-off is as much a compliance exercise as a mobilisation exercise.

7In-depth stakeholder analysis and accountability

The influence/interest matrix from the core course is a starting point. To really manage a project, you need to move from a snapshot to an engagement plan: for each actor, what we expect from them, what they expect from us, how and how often we communicate, and who in the team is responsible.

A five-step method

1. List broadly in a workshop (90 minutes), by category: affected populations (IDPs, hosts, groups facing specific risks), authorities (administrative, technical, customary), armed actors or actors controlling territory where relevant, coordination (cluster, OCHA, cash working group), other organisations present, private sector (suppliers, transporters, mobile network operators), donor, headquarters, team and partner.
2. Characterise each actor: interest, influence, expected position (supportive, neutral, opposed), expectations, concerns, capacity to block the project.
3. Position them in the matrix and identify the actors who may change quadrant during the project (a newly appointed local authority, an armed group taking control of a road).
4. Define the engagement: inform, consult, involve, collaborate, delegate. The level depends on the actor and on the decision concerned.
5. Update quarterly and after any major change in context.

Stakeholder engagement plan: template

Affected populations: from consultation to accountability

The CHS makes participation and accountability verifiable requirements. In practice, for the scoping phase:

• Needs and priorities are gathered directly from women, men, girls and boys of different ages, persons with disabilities and marginalised groups, in spaces where they can speak freely.
• Communities are informed about the organisation, its mandate, the project, its selection criteria and its limits, in languages and formats they understand.
• A complaints and feedback mechanism is designed before activities start, consulting users on their preferred channels (box, toll-free hotline, help desk, committees), with a separate and confidential procedure for sensitive complaints, in particular sexual exploitation and abuse, in line with the IASC commitments on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse.
• Response times are set and budgeted: for example acknowledgement of receipt within 7 days, a substantive response within 30 days for non-sensitive complaints, immediate referral (within 24 hours) of sensitive allegations to the designated focal point.

Accountability has a cost: dedicated staff, a hotline, translation, travel, team time. If it does not appear in the budget and in the WBS, it will not be implemented.

Sensitive actors and neutrality

In conflict settings, stakeholder analysis overlaps with security and access analysis. Any contact with de facto authorities or armed groups follows the organisation's humanitarian access and negotiation policy, is authorised by line management and documented. The analysis must also identify the risks of aid diversion and the project's effects on local tensions: this is the Do No Harm approach, which distinguishes dividers and connectors between groups and checks that the project does not reinforce the former.

8Full case study: scoping the Kalema WASH project

This fictional case is the common thread running through all three days. It follows, step by step, the reasoning of a project manager, from receipt of the agreement to approval of the charter.

The context

Kalema district, in the fictional province of Haut-Lomani. After clashes in the north of the province, some 18,000 internally displaced people (3,600 households of 5 people on average) have settled in three spontaneous sites around the town of Kalema, next to a host community of 12,000 people. Site A (8,000 people) is the oldest, site B (6,000) is peri-urban, site C (4,000) is 14 km away on a track cut off two months a year during the rains (July-August). The health centre reports a 60% increase in consultations for diarrhoea over three months. The fictional international NGO Alvéa works with a local partner, the Association Mbeka pour le développement (AMD), which is well rooted in the community but has little experience of institutional funding.

Baseline data

The scoping reasoning

1. Size the needs. For the displaced population alone, reaching 500 people per pump requires 36 equivalent water points; 11 functional ones exist plus one kiosk. At a ratio of 50 people per latrine, 360 latrines are needed, then 900 in the longer term (1:20 ratio); around 210 are functional. The gap is therefore about 24 water points and 150 latrines in the initial phase, 690 in the longer term.

2. Check coverage by other actors. The cluster's 5W shows that another NGO has committed to 4 boreholes in site B and 100 latrines in site A. The residual gap brings Alvéa's target down to 20 water points (12 rehabilitations and 8 new boreholes fitted with pumps) and 600 shared family latrines (one for roughly four households, i.e. 20 people), across the three sites.

3. Make the scope trade-offs. The envelope announced by the donor is EUR 1,200,000 over 12 months. An initial estimate puts the cost of all identified needs at EUR 1,420,000. The project manager presents three options to the coordinator.

The committee chooses option C, keeping the possibility of switching to B if the market analysis is unfavourable. This decision is recorded: it is a direct application of the triple constraint, documented before signature.

4. Test the assumptions. The "no new influx" assumption is judged moderately likely. Rather than writing it down and hoping, the design includes a 15% capacity margin in sizing the water points and a crisis modifier negotiated with the donor (a reserve of 5% of the budget that can be released with written agreement in the event of an influx of more than 3,000 people). The assumption "access to site C in the rainy season" is false two months a year: works on site C are therefore scheduled as a priority from February to June.

The completed charter (extract)

The stakeholder matrix for the case

The analysis reveals a critical point: the customary chief controls access to land. Without written agreement for the 8 new boreholes, the project is blocked. Securing land agreements becomes a first-month task, with a named owner, and a risk is entered in the register.

9Common mistakes, the donor's perspective and variations by context

The costliest scoping mistakes

What donors, evaluators and auditors look at

• When appraising the proposal: justification with recent, disaggregated data, consistency with the response plan, coordination with the cluster, cost per beneficiary and unit costs compared with benchmarks, risk and access analysis, partner capacity, mainstreaming of protection, gender and accountability.
• Evaluators generally apply the OECD DAC criteria (relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, sustainability), supplemented by those of the ALNAP guide for humanitarian action (coverage, connectedness). Relevance is judged on the quality of the scoping: were the priority needs identified with the populations?
• Auditors check that what was funded matches what was contracted, that expenditure falls within the eligibility period, that procurement procedures were followed and that change decisions are documented. A well-kept charter and steering committee minutes are valuable supporting documents.

Variations by context

The more unstable the context, the more the charter must explicitly provide for its own adaptation mechanisms: scenarios, crisis modifier, trigger thresholds and decision-making authority.

10Interview questions and key references

Interview questions

Recruiters for project manager or coordinator positions test the ability to reason through real situations, not the recitation of definitions. Here are frequent questions and what a strong answer contains.

1. "You join a project that has already been signed. What do you do in your first two weeks?" A good answer mentions reading the agreement and its annexes, the budget and the logframe; meeting the team, the support services and the partner; a visit to the field and to the communities; checking imminent milestones (reports, major procurement); updating the risk register; organising or resuming the kick-off meeting.
2. "How do you justify a project's target?" The answer links the target to the gap against standards (Sphere, cluster), to coverage by other actors (5W), to the budget and to access, and mentions baseline data.
3. "The budget awarded is 20% lower than what you requested. What do you do?" The expected answer applies the triple constraint: costed options (reduction in scope, area or duration, change of modality), impact on standards and on populations, consultation with the cluster to avoid gaps, a formalised and communicated decision. Never keep the same scope while silently degrading quality.
4. "How do you involve communities in scoping a project in an emergency?" Focus group discussions separated by sex and age, diverse key informants, information on the project and its limits, a complaints mechanism from the outset, feedback to communities on the choices made. Reference to the CHS.
5. "What is a killer assumption and what do you do if you identify one?" Definition, a concrete example and, above all, the decision: revise the design or do not launch the project in that form.
6. "How do you work with a local partner that has little experience with institutional donors?" Capacity assessment, co-design, a budget covering its real costs, a capacity-strengthening plan, instalments and financial support, fair risk sharing; reference to localisation commitments.

Key references

• Sphere Project, The Sphere Handbook: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response, 2018 edition.
• CHS Alliance, Groupe URD and the Sphere Project, Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS), revised version 2024.
• PM4NGOs, A Guide to the PMD Pro: Project Management for Development Professionals.
• IASC, Joint Intersectoral Analysis Framework (JIAF) and Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC) guidance.
• IASC, Multi-Cluster/Sector Initial Rapid Assessment (MIRA), guidance.
• IASC, Six Core Principles Relating to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and Commitments on Accountability to Affected People.
• ALNAP, Evaluation of Humanitarian Action Guide.
• OECD DAC, Better Criteria for Better Evaluation: Revised Evaluation Criteria Definitions and Principles for Use (2019).
• CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, Do No Harm (analytical framework).
• Washington Group on Disability Statistics, Short Set on Functioning.
• European Commission, general conditions and guidelines applicable to humanitarian aid actions funded by the European Union.
• United States Government, 2 CFR 200 — Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards.

Key takeaways from this in-depth day: solid scoping can be recognised by three things. The target is sized against standards and against other actors. The triple constraint trade-offs are written down and approved. Communities, the partner and the support services have been involved before the first purchase.