Managing implementation and closing

1Monitoring progress

Monitoring continuously compares what was planned with what is actual: activities, deliverables, expenditure, risks. Simple tools: a short weekly meeting, a one-page dashboard, monthly budget monitoring with finance, updating the Gantt chart and the risk register.

An issue log lists what is already a problem (unlike a risk, which is uncertain), with an owner and a resolution date. Issues that cannot be resolved at your level are escalated quickly.

2Managing changes

Humanitarian projects change often: population displacement, access cut off, a new epidemic. A change in scope, schedule or budget goes through change control:

1. describe the request and the reason for it;
2. analyse the impact on scope, schedule, cost, quality and risks;
3. have the decision taken by the right person (and by the donor if the contract requires it, through an amendment);
4. update the plans and inform stakeholders.

Small additions accepted without analysis or agreement end up overwhelming the project: this is “scope creep”.

3Team and remote management

• Clarify everyone's roles (RACI) and objectives.
• Delegate with clear expected results, not just tasks.
• In remote management (area with limited access), strengthen local teams and partners, plan third-party monitoring, geotagged photos, regular calls and complaints mechanisms.
• Look after the team's well-being and security: these are conditions for the project's success.

4Closing the project

Closure is prepared several months in advance:

• Exit strategy: handover to the authorities, committees or partners, or transition to other funding; decided from the design stage.
• Operational closure: deliverables accepted, assets transferred according to the donor's rules, supplier and staff contracts closed.
• Administrative and financial closure: final reports, archiving, audit where applicable.
• Lessons learned: a workshop with the team, partners and community representatives; what worked, what did not, what we would do again.

5A monitoring system that raises the alarm: dashboard, thresholds and earned value

Comparing planned against actual is the principle. In practice, a useful monitoring system answers four questions every month: where are we compared with the baseline, why, what are we going to do, and who needs to know? It combines activity, result, expenditure and risk data, with thresholds that trigger action.

The management rhythm

The one-page dashboard

• Overall status colour-coded (green, amber, red) for schedule, budget, quality, risks and accountability, with a one-sentence explanation per heading.
• Milestones: planned, actual or forecast, variance.
• Output indicators, cumulative, against the target and the interim target.
• Finance: cumulative expenditure, commitments, burn rate, forecast at completion.
• Risks: the top three, how they are evolving, early warning indicators triggered.
• Accountability: number of complaints and feedback received, by category, average response time, overdue complaints.
• Decisions requested from the committee.

Thresholds that trigger action

A variance means nothing without a threshold. Example of rules adopted by a steering committee:

• Schedule variance of more than 2 weeks on a critical path task: amber; more than 4 weeks: red, with a mandatory recovery plan.
• Budget burn rate more than 15 points below the planned rate: analysis and revised forecast; more than 25 points: risk of underspending to be reported to the donor.
• Budget line more than 90% spent while the activity is not completed: alert and reallocation proposal.
• Complaints unanswered beyond the set deadline: systematic item at the committee; any allegation of sexual exploitation or abuse: immediate handling outside the committee according to the procedure.

Earned value: measuring schedule and cost together

Traditional budget monitoring compares planned and actual expenditure. It is misleading: having spent less than planned may mean you are efficient or simply behind schedule. The earned value method removes the ambiguity with three values at a given date.

• Planned value (PV): the budgeted cost of the work that should have been done by that date.
• Earned value (EV): the budgeted cost of the work actually done. For example, 300 latrines completed out of 600 budgeted at EUR 228,000 give an earned value of EUR 114,000, whatever the actual cost.
• Actual cost (AC): what was actually spent on that work.

There is no need to apply the method to the whole project. Applying it to the two or three most expensive work packages (works, procurement, transfers) is often enough to detect drift three to four months before it becomes visible in the financial report.

Financial monitoring is not the business of finance alone. The project manager is responsible for the forecast at completion: they are the one who knows which activities remain to be done and at what cost.

6Change control and contract amendments

Not every change requires the donor's agreement, but every significant change must be recorded. The project manager distinguishes three levels and applies a proportionate procedure to each.

The change request: content

1. Description: what is changing, and from when.
2. Justification: triggering event, supporting data (security report, assessment, market prices), reasons why it could not be anticipated or why the measure planned in the risk register is no longer sufficient.
3. Options considered: at least two, with their effect on scope, schedule, cost, quality, risks and populations.
4. Impact analysis of the recommended option: revised logframe, revised targets, revised budget, revised schedule.
5. Consultation: partner, communities concerned, cluster if coverage changes.
6. Decision and signatures.

Amendments with the donor

• Anticipate: most donors require the request to be submitted before the end date, often with a minimum notice period set in the general conditions, and refuse retroactive regularisation. An extension request is prepared two to three months before the deadline.
• Make informal contact first: a conversation with the donor's programme officer makes it possible to check admissibility and the expected format.
• Know the rules: agreements set flexibility thresholds between headings beyond which approval is required. For US funding, 2 CFR 200.308 lists the revisions subject to prior approval; it provides for a possible no-cost extension, which the agency's terms and conditions may regulate or make subject to approval. European donors distinguish amendments that require a formal modification of the agreement from those that can simply be notified.
• Use the flexibility mechanisms provided: crisis modifier, contingency reserve, re-orientation clause in the event of a change in context. They must have been negotiated at the scoping stage.
• Never implement before written agreement a change that requires one: the corresponding expenditure risks being declared ineligible.

Preventing scope creep

Requests for additions come from everywhere: authorities who want a borehole in a non-targeted village, communities asking for showers, a donor suggesting a visibility activity. The project manager never says "yes" in the field. They answer: "we will analyse this and come back to you by such-and-such a date", then put the request through change control. The explicit exclusions in the charter are their best argument.

An up-to-date change log, with the date, the decision, the decision-maker and the reference of the donor's approval, is one of the first documents requested at audit and in the final evaluation.

7Leading the team, the partner and remote implementation

Managing issues and escalating

The issue log is reviewed every week. Each issue has a factual description, an opening date, an impact (schedule, cost, quality, security, populations), an owner, an action, a deadline and a status. Escalation rules mirror those for risks: an issue that threatens a contractual milestone, security, safeguarding or financial compliance is escalated without waiting for the next meeting. A good reflex: escalate early with options rather than late with a fait accompli.

Leading the team

• Individual objectives derived from the WBS and the RACI, reviewed in short monthly one-to-ones and in a formal performance appraisal in line with the HR policy.
• Delegation: delegate a result with the corresponding authority and resources, agree on checkpoints, accept that the person may do things differently.
• Staff well-being and care: the CHS (Commitment 8) expects staff to be supported to do their job effectively and to be treated fairly and equitably. In practice: a realistic workload, rest and leave respected, access to psychosocial support, known security protocols, equal treatment of national and international staff with regard to security.
• Code of conduct and safeguarding: signature of the code of conduct, training on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, knowledge of reporting channels, reference checks at recruitment using existing inter-agency schemes.

Managing a local partner

The Grand Bargain commitments set a target of at least 25% of humanitarian funding going as directly as possible to local and national responders. Beyond the figure, the quality of the partnership is played out in day-to-day management.

• Capacity assessment before contracting (governance, finance, procurement, HR, safeguarding, programme), followed by a costed capacity-strengthening plan.
• A clear partnership agreement: activities, budget, the partner's indirect costs, payment and reporting schedule, applicable procurement rules, safeguarding obligations, dispute resolution mechanism.
• Joint monitoring rather than inspection: joint visits, accompanied monthly financial reviews in the first months, then quarterly if results are satisfactory.
• Recognition: the partner is named in reports and visibility materials, and takes part in meetings with the donor and the cluster.

Remote management: a complete system

When access for supervisory staff is impossible or very limited, management relies on a multi-layered verification system. No single source is sufficient; it is triangulation that provides confidence.

Remote management transfers a significant share of security risk to national staff and partners. The duty of care requires this to be explicitly acknowledged, the partner's security measures to be funded, and partners not to be asked to do what the organisation would refuse to ask of its own staff.

8Closing: operations, contract, finance and learning

Closure starts three months before the end date. An improvised closure is expensive: ineligible last-minute expenditure, assets not transferred, staff dismissed without notice, a late final report, lessons lost.

Closure checklist

Assets

Assets purchased with grant funding (vehicles, generators, IT equipment, remaining stocks) are not the organisation's to dispose of freely at the end of the project. Agreements set out their destination: transfer to beneficiaries, local partners or authorities, reassignment to another project funded by the same donor, or sale with reimbursement according to unit value thresholds set by the applicable regulations. Each transfer is documented by a signed handover report and linked to the asset register.

Archiving

The complete project file (agreement and amendments, correspondence, reports, accounting documents, procurement files, beneficiary lists in line with data protection rules, handover reports) is kept for the period set by the donor and local law: for example several years after payment of the balance for European Union humanitarian aid, and at least three years from the submission of the final financial report under 2 CFR 200.334, these periods being extended in the event of an audit or litigation. Beneficiaries' personal data are kept only for as long as necessary, then destroyed or anonymised in accordance with the organisation's data protection policy.

Lessons learned that are actually used

The lessons learned workshop lasts from half a day to a full day. It brings together the team, the support services, the partner and community representatives (a separate session if necessary so that everyone can speak freely). A proven method is the after-action review, with four questions: what did we plan? what happened? why was there a difference? what will we do differently? Each lesson is phrased as an actionable recommendation with an addressee ("for future drilling projects: place the pump order before the studies are completed; addressee: logistics coordination"). A lesson without an addressee is merely an observation.

The final report is not a communication document. It reports on the results achieved and not achieved, explains the variances and describes what the organisation has learned. Donors and evaluators trust an honest report about its failures more than a uniformly positive one.

9Full case study: managing and closing the Kalema project

We return to the Kalema project at the end of month 7 (end of August). The project manager is preparing the monthly steering committee.

1. The situation in month 7

2. The earned value analysis

Total budget (BAC): EUR 1,205,000. At the end of M7, cumulative planned value: EUR 720,000. Earned value calculated from the work actually done, work package by work package: EUR 610,000. Actual cost recorded by finance, including commitments: EUR 655,000.

Traditional budget monitoring, on the other hand, showed EUR 655,000 spent against 720,000 planned: an apparently "under budget" project. Earned value reveals the opposite: the project is both behind schedule and over budget.

3. The diagnosis

• The actual unit cost of latrines is EUR 425 instead of 380: pit depth had to be increased in site A (high water table), which requires pit lining. This is the main cause of the cost variance.
• The two dry boreholes in site B were paid for (drilling costs incurred) without producing a water point.
• The pump delay, on the critical path, explains most of the schedule variance. The four-week project buffer has been used up.
• New event: the displacement tracking mechanism reports the arrival of 2,800 people in site B over the past three weeks. The trigger threshold for the crisis reserve (3,000) has almost been reached.

4. The options presented to the committee

The committee selects option 3, partially combined with option 2 (the 2nd transfer instalment is reduced from EUR 15 to EUR 10, freeing up EUR 18,000). The project manager contacted the donor's programme officer before the committee: the request is considered admissible if submitted within three weeks.

5. The amendment request (summary)

• Subject: two-month extension (new end date: 31 March), activation of the EUR 60,000 crisis reserve, reallocation of EUR 18,000 from transfers to sanitation, addition of 2,800 people to the target population.
• Justification: influx documented by displacement tracking and the site committee, import delay beyond the organisation's control (supplier correspondence attached), technical cost overrun justified by an engineer's note and photos.
• Revised logframe: target population increased to 24,800 people; latrine target maintained at 600 plus 80 emergency latrines in site B; water points increased to 22.
• Revised budget: total unchanged within the limit of the contractual reserve; reallocation table by heading; new monthly expenditure forecast.
• Consultations: AMD, site committees, WASH Cluster (to avoid duplication with the other NGO in site B).

6. Closure

The donor's agreement arrives six weeks later. Closure is rescheduled for the new end date. At D − 90, the project manager notes that 4% of the budget risks remaining unspent; rather than end-of-project purchases, she proposes a stock of spare parts for the management committees, consistent with the sustainability logic and accepted by the donor. The 22 water points are handed over jointly with the water department and transferred by handover report to the committees under the supervision of the municipality; the two rented vehicles are returned, and the office generator is transferred to AMD in accordance with disposal rules.

The endline survey shows average availability of 16.5 L per person per day (target 15), 78% of water samples at the point of consumption free of E. coli (baseline 49%, target 80%), a ratio of 19 people per latrine, and 64% of households with a functional handwashing facility with soap (target 70%). The final report presents these results without embellishment and explains the two targets not met: contamination at the point of consumption is linked to household storage; hygiene promotion was interrupted during the rains.

Three lessons are retained, each with an addressee: order pumps in week 1 from a regional framework agreement (logistics coordination); plan a water table study before costing latrines in low-lying areas (technical team); systematically negotiate a crisis modifier in projects in IDP sites (programme coordination and business development).

10Common mistakes, the auditor's perspective and variations by context

The most frequent management and closure mistakes

What auditors and evaluators look at at the end of the project

• Consistency between the financial report, the accounts and supporting documents; eligibility of expenditure (period, nature, link with the project).
• Complete procurement files, compliant with thresholds and segregation of duties.
• Amendments and the change log: no significant change may be implemented without a record of authorisation.
• The asset register and disposal reports.
• Evidence of results: beneficiary lists, handover reports, survey reports, water analyses.
• For the evaluation: effectiveness (targets achieved or not, and why), efficiency (unit costs, timeframes), sustainability (functioning of facilities, committees), accountability (complaints handled, feedback incorporated), consideration of protection and inclusion.

Variations by context

11Interview questions and key references

Interview questions

1. "At mid-term, your project has spent 40% of the budget with 50% of the time elapsed. Is that a problem?" A strong answer refuses to conclude without looking at the work accomplished: if 30% of the work is done, the project is behind schedule and over budget; if 50% is done, it is efficient. It mentions earned value, the forecast at completion and the discussion with finance.
2. "Describe a situation in which you had to request an amendment from the donor." Expected structure: context, triggering event, analysis of options, consultation, formal request, outcome, what you would do differently. Emphasise anticipation and not implementing anything before approval.
3. "How do you manage a project in an area you cannot go to?" A strengthened partner or local team, triangulation of several sources of verification, third-party monitoring, a direct complaints mechanism, verifiable milestones, duty of care towards those taking the risks, accepted limits to the scope.
4. "A team member reports a rumour of abuse by a day labourer on the construction site. What do you do?" Do not investigate yourself; refer immediately to the designated focal point according to the procedure; guarantee the confidentiality and safety of the person concerned and of the person reporting; referral to survivor assistance in line with their wishes; follow the donor reporting obligations set out in the agreement.
5. "What does a good project closure involve?" Operational closure (handovers, transfers, exit strategy), contractual closure (suppliers, staff), financial closure (reports, balances, assets), documentation (archiving, data protection) and learning (actionable lessons with addressees), planned from D − 90.
6. "How do you manage a partner that keeps falling behind on financial reporting?" Understand the cause (capacity, cash flow, overload), targeted support, adjustment of the payment schedule, graduated escalation as provided for in the agreement, documentation; do not abruptly suspend activities that are vital for populations without a plan.

Key references

• PM4NGOs, PMD Pro Guide (chapters on implementation, monitoring, change control and closure).
• Project Management Institute, PMBOK Guide, and the Standard for Earned Value Management.
• CHS Alliance, Groupe URD and the Sphere Project, Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), in particular the commitments on complaints handling, learning and staff support.
• ALNAP, Evaluation of Humanitarian Action Guide and work on organisational learning.
• ALNAP, work on monitoring in limited-access contexts and remote management.
• Humanitarian Outcomes and partners, Secure Access in Volatile Environments (SAVE) research on remote management and secure access.
• IASC, Grand Bargain commitments (localisation, harmonised reporting).
• IASC, Six Core Principles Relating to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and Protocol on the Provision of Assistance to Victims.
• Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response, Inter-Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme.
• United States Government, 2 CFR 200, sections on revisions, property management, record retention and closeout.
• European Commission, general conditions applicable to humanitarian aid actions (amendments, reporting, assets, record retention).

Key takeaway: managing means detecting variances early through thresholds and earned value, deciding on the basis of costed options, recording every change, and closing from D − 90 onwards, leaving behind well-maintained facilities, complete files and lessons that change the next projects.