Logframes and the Logical Framework Approach
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
In practice, even the best project managers
can find it difficult to plan major projects without missing important
activities, and without failing to spot all significant risks
and issues.
What's more, once you're immersed in the detail of
project planning, it's hard to keep site of the big picture: What
are you trying to achieve and why? What are the risks and assumptions?
And how you can tell whether the project is a success once it's
implemented?
The Logical Framework Approach is a useful technique
for helping you do these things, thereby making your projects
more robust and coherent – and more successful.
The Logical Framework Approach (LFA) was developed in the 1970s as a tool for strategic planning, using the ideas of Management by Objectives . It's a tool of choice used by development agencies and in the international donor community. Large aid organizations throughout the world use the LFA for planning, approving, evaluating and monitoring their projects. That said, this is a powerful and useful technique, and is one that richly deserves much wider application than in international development alone.
The Logical Framework Approach and the Logframe
The Logical Framework Approach elegantly weaves
together top-down and bottom-up approaches to project management.
It brings together the classical, top-down, "waterfall approach"
for identifying the activities in a project, with a rigorous bottom-up
checking process to make sure that these activity lists are comprehensive.
It then reinforces this with a rigorous risks and assumptions
analysis, which is again thoroughly checked. And it concludes
by identifying the controls needed to monitor and manage the project
through to successful conclusion.
It does this within the framework of the Logframe
Matrix, shown in figure 1 below. This cross-references seven key
areas of the project to ensure that the key questions are asked:
Goal – what results do
we expect?
Purpose – why are we doing
this?
Outputs – what are the deliverables?
Activities – what will we
do to deliver the outputs?
Indicators of Achievement –
how will we know we've been successful?
Means of Verification –
how will we check our reported results?
Risks and Assumptions –
what assumptions underlie the structure of our project and what
is the risk they will not prevail?
The answers to these questions are put into
a Logical Framework Matrix (Logframe) and become the output of
the Logical Framework Analysis exercise. The Logframe is a four
by four matrix, shown below:
Figure 1: The Logframe Matrix
Logframe Matrix
Project Summary
Indicators of Achievement
Means of Verification
Important Risks and Assumptions
Goal:
Purpose:
Outputs:
Activities:
The process has significant value for any size
of project. It helps identify the big picture and allows you to
see how other items cascade down from it. As well, it helps flesh
out the core assumptions that are used in the project development
process.
Using a Logframe
Carry out the following steps in consultation
with your stakeholders ,
after you've completed a thorough analysis of the situation. By
involving stakeholders, you'll end up with a much more robust
analysis of the project than you would on your own.
Step 1: Identifying Outputs and Activities
(Project Summary, Column 1)
The first step is to brainstorm the outputs
and activities required by the project, starting with the project
goal. Do this in the Project Summary column (column 1) of the
Logframe. Start by defining the Goal and Purpose of the project
and, from these, identify the outputs and the activities required:
Goal: What is the "to be" state of
the project? What are you trying to achieve?
Purpose: What good will you do by
achieving the goal? Who are the beneficiaries? What is the underlying
motivation for starting the project in the first place?
Outputs: What specific things will
be delivered as a result of this project? In order for the project
to be considered a success, what changes must be made, and what
will the result be?
Activities: What will actually be
done in order to deliver the intended outputs? The Logframe
is not intended as an implementation guide, so this section
is typically presented in bullet point form.
Tip:
Don't underestimate the amount of time
and work needed to complete this process properly! Manage
people's expectations on this, and keep them focused on
the task in hand. If people lose focus, you'll miss important
activities, false assumptions, and risks.
Step 2: Verify the Vertical Logic
Next, we take a bottom-up approach to checking that this list
of activities will deliver the desired results – after all, it's
possible that activities have been missed, or that the actual
results of these activities may not be the ones wanted. This checking
process is an important part of making sure that your project
plan is robust.
Column one shows a hierarchy of objectives,
so it is important to check that actions identified deliver the
results wanted. Check the logic in column one by using an if/then
test as follows. Starting with your activities, ensure that:
IF you complete the activity, THEN the
outputs will occur.
You want to make sure your activities and outputs are directly
linked.
IF your outputs are achieved, THEN the
purpose of your project will be satisfied. Are the planned
outputs closely tied to your purpose? Make sure the beneficiaries
you identified in your purpose actually receive the beneficial
outcome desired.
IF your purpose is satisfied, THEN the
goal of the project is achieved.
Examine your purpose and goal to make sure that the purpose
fully incorporates the intent within the goal.
If, in this step, you find that activities and
outputs are missing or are wrong, add or adjust them appropriately.
And bear in mind that if you identify issues with elements higher
up in this hierarchy, you'll need to go back to Step 1 and identify
appropriate outcomes and activities for those elements.
Step 3: Identify the Risks and Assumptions
of your plan (Column 4)
We now cross over to the other side of the Logframe to identify
risks associated with the project, and possible false assumptions
that may undermine it.
There are any number of external factors that
can throw projects off course. In the planning and design phase,
it is prudent to identify the major assumptions you've used and
the degree or risk associated with them.
For each of the points in the project's structure
(Column 1), identify the assumptions you're making (which may
or may not be correct), and look at the associated risks.
To define your assumptions, ask "What actions or variables must
exist for the project to start and proceed as planned?" Start at
the bottom and work up.
Activity Assumptions: What do you
need to happen for your activities to be completed successfully?
And what conditions and resources are you assuming will be in
place?
Output Assumptions: What factors outside
of your control must be present to achieve the outputs you need?
Purpose Assumptions: To achieve the
purpose, what external factors do you need to have in place?
Goal Assumptions: What are the necessary
conditions for long-term viability of the project goal?
Clarify these assumptions with stakeholders
immediately, if you can. If you can't, make sure you have early
activities in place within your project plan to confirm that your
assumptions are correct.
Next, repeat this process looking at risks
(see our article on Risk
Analysis .) Make sure you plan in all of the activities needed
to manage or eliminate risk, and if risk can neither be managed
or eliminated, make sure that it's clearly identified so that
it can be evaluated in the next step.
Step 4: Verify the Logic of the Risks and
Assumptions
Once you have identified assumptions and risks, you need to check
them to determine:
Whether your assumptions will link one level
of the project to the next; and
Whether risks are too large.
First of all, check that your assumptions are logical using an
if/and/then analysis. Start at the bottom and work up to ensure:
IF the activity is completed successfully,
AND the assumptions underlying it are true, THEN the output
will be delivered.
IF the output is delivered, AND the assumptions
underlying it are true, THEN the purpose will be achieved.
IF the purpose is achieved, AND the assumptions
underlying it are true, THEN the goal will be achieved.
Then, check some additional points related to your risk and
assumption analysis:
Make sure you have identified as many assumptions
and risks as possible. Have you talked to everyone involved?
Have you looked at the project from all angles?
Make sure your assumptions are stated specifically
and are not too vague. You can't assess risk accurately if you
are working with generalities.
Do you have plans at each level to manage
the risks you have identified?
If the risks you're not able to manage are
too high, consider redesigning the project or, if you still
can't reduce these to sensible levels, reconsider the project's
viability.
Again, where this process exposes issues with
your Logframe, update it appropriately.
Step 5: Determine the Indicators of Achievement and Means of
Verification
When you are satisfied with the structure of the Logframe so far,
and are comfortable that you can manage the risks related to your
assumptions, you can move on to think about how you will monitor
progress towards success.
Performance indicators are the specific measures
used to monitor this progress. Here are the criteria for a good
indicator of achievement:
Valid – it must measure the intended result.
Reliable – the measure must be consistently
attained over time.
Sensitive – the measure should respond to
changes, and should sufficiently-quickly identify if things
are going wrong.
Simple – the measure should be easy to collect
or perform.
Useful – it must help with decision making
or provide information for future learning.
Affordable – you need to be able to afford
the financial and time costs involved in taking the measurement
on a regular basis.
Using these criteria, for each goal, purpose,
output and activity, indicate what will be used to determine whether
it was successfully achieved. Also note who will be responsible
for setting these targets.
Then indicate exactly how you will verify that
achievement. What sources of data will you use? How will you collect
the data? How often?
Make sure that appropriate activities are in
place within your plan to set up and manage these monitoring systems.
Click
here for an example Logframe.
Key Points
The Logical Framework Approach is a great technique
for making sure that your project plan is robust and coherent.
By using it, you significantly increase the likelihood that your
project will be successful.
Firstly, it provides a useful framework for
working through the design of your project with key stakeholders,
making sure that you can take full advantage of their knowledge,
insights and experience.
Secondly, it provides a useful process for testing
and checking your project plan, making sure that it contains all
the necessary activities, is based on sound assumptions, and fairly
weighs and manages the risks inherent within the project.
Thirdly, it helps you ensure that appropriate
control measures are embedded within the project, meaning that
you can quickly identify where things are going wrong, and take
appropriate corrective action.
Tags:
Project Management, Skills
can find it difficult to plan major projects without missing important
activities, and without failing to spot all significant risks
and issues.
What's more, once you're immersed in the detail of
project planning, it's hard to keep site of the big picture: What
are you trying to achieve and why? What are the risks and assumptions?
And how you can tell whether the project is a success once it's
implemented?
The Logical Framework Approach is a useful technique
for helping you do these things, thereby making your projects
more robust and coherent – and more successful.
The Logical Framework Approach (LFA) was developed in the 1970s as a tool for strategic planning, using the ideas of Management by Objectives . It's a tool of choice used by development agencies and in the international donor community. Large aid organizations throughout the world use the LFA for planning, approving, evaluating and monitoring their projects. That said, this is a powerful and useful technique, and is one that richly deserves much wider application than in international development alone.
The Logical Framework Approach and the Logframe
The Logical Framework Approach elegantly weaves
together top-down and bottom-up approaches to project management.
It brings together the classical, top-down, "waterfall approach"
for identifying the activities in a project, with a rigorous bottom-up
checking process to make sure that these activity lists are comprehensive.
It then reinforces this with a rigorous risks and assumptions
analysis, which is again thoroughly checked. And it concludes
by identifying the controls needed to monitor and manage the project
through to successful conclusion.
It does this within the framework of the Logframe
Matrix, shown in figure 1 below. This cross-references seven key
areas of the project to ensure that the key questions are asked:
Goal – what results do
we expect?
Purpose – why are we doing
this?
Outputs – what are the deliverables?
Activities – what will we
do to deliver the outputs?
Indicators of Achievement –
how will we know we've been successful?
Means of Verification –
how will we check our reported results?
Risks and Assumptions –
what assumptions underlie the structure of our project and what
is the risk they will not prevail?
The answers to these questions are put into
a Logical Framework Matrix (Logframe) and become the output of
the Logical Framework Analysis exercise. The Logframe is a four
by four matrix, shown below:
Figure 1: The Logframe Matrix
Logframe Matrix
Project Summary
Indicators of Achievement
Means of Verification
Important Risks and Assumptions
Goal:
Purpose:
Outputs:
Activities:
The process has significant value for any size
of project. It helps identify the big picture and allows you to
see how other items cascade down from it. As well, it helps flesh
out the core assumptions that are used in the project development
process.
Using a Logframe
Carry out the following steps in consultation
with your stakeholders ,
after you've completed a thorough analysis of the situation. By
involving stakeholders, you'll end up with a much more robust
analysis of the project than you would on your own.
Step 1: Identifying Outputs and Activities
(Project Summary, Column 1)
The first step is to brainstorm the outputs
and activities required by the project, starting with the project
goal. Do this in the Project Summary column (column 1) of the
Logframe. Start by defining the Goal and Purpose of the project
and, from these, identify the outputs and the activities required:
Goal: What is the "to be" state of
the project? What are you trying to achieve?
Purpose: What good will you do by
achieving the goal? Who are the beneficiaries? What is the underlying
motivation for starting the project in the first place?
Outputs: What specific things will
be delivered as a result of this project? In order for the project
to be considered a success, what changes must be made, and what
will the result be?
Activities: What will actually be
done in order to deliver the intended outputs? The Logframe
is not intended as an implementation guide, so this section
is typically presented in bullet point form.
Tip:
Don't underestimate the amount of time
and work needed to complete this process properly! Manage
people's expectations on this, and keep them focused on
the task in hand. If people lose focus, you'll miss important
activities, false assumptions, and risks.
Step 2: Verify the Vertical Logic
Next, we take a bottom-up approach to checking that this list
of activities will deliver the desired results – after all, it's
possible that activities have been missed, or that the actual
results of these activities may not be the ones wanted. This checking
process is an important part of making sure that your project
plan is robust.
Column one shows a hierarchy of objectives,
so it is important to check that actions identified deliver the
results wanted. Check the logic in column one by using an if/then
test as follows. Starting with your activities, ensure that:
IF you complete the activity, THEN the
outputs will occur.
You want to make sure your activities and outputs are directly
linked.
IF your outputs are achieved, THEN the
purpose of your project will be satisfied. Are the planned
outputs closely tied to your purpose? Make sure the beneficiaries
you identified in your purpose actually receive the beneficial
outcome desired.
IF your purpose is satisfied, THEN the
goal of the project is achieved.
Examine your purpose and goal to make sure that the purpose
fully incorporates the intent within the goal.
If, in this step, you find that activities and
outputs are missing or are wrong, add or adjust them appropriately.
And bear in mind that if you identify issues with elements higher
up in this hierarchy, you'll need to go back to Step 1 and identify
appropriate outcomes and activities for those elements.
Step 3: Identify the Risks and Assumptions
of your plan (Column 4)
We now cross over to the other side of the Logframe to identify
risks associated with the project, and possible false assumptions
that may undermine it.
There are any number of external factors that
can throw projects off course. In the planning and design phase,
it is prudent to identify the major assumptions you've used and
the degree or risk associated with them.
For each of the points in the project's structure
(Column 1), identify the assumptions you're making (which may
or may not be correct), and look at the associated risks.
To define your assumptions, ask "What actions or variables must
exist for the project to start and proceed as planned?" Start at
the bottom and work up.
Activity Assumptions: What do you
need to happen for your activities to be completed successfully?
And what conditions and resources are you assuming will be in
place?
Output Assumptions: What factors outside
of your control must be present to achieve the outputs you need?
Purpose Assumptions: To achieve the
purpose, what external factors do you need to have in place?
Goal Assumptions: What are the necessary
conditions for long-term viability of the project goal?
Clarify these assumptions with stakeholders
immediately, if you can. If you can't, make sure you have early
activities in place within your project plan to confirm that your
assumptions are correct.
Next, repeat this process looking at risks
(see our article on Risk
Analysis .) Make sure you plan in all of the activities needed
to manage or eliminate risk, and if risk can neither be managed
or eliminated, make sure that it's clearly identified so that
it can be evaluated in the next step.
Step 4: Verify the Logic of the Risks and
Assumptions
Once you have identified assumptions and risks, you need to check
them to determine:
Whether your assumptions will link one level
of the project to the next; and
Whether risks are too large.
First of all, check that your assumptions are logical using an
if/and/then analysis. Start at the bottom and work up to ensure:
IF the activity is completed successfully,
AND the assumptions underlying it are true, THEN the output
will be delivered.
IF the output is delivered, AND the assumptions
underlying it are true, THEN the purpose will be achieved.
IF the purpose is achieved, AND the assumptions
underlying it are true, THEN the goal will be achieved.
Then, check some additional points related to your risk and
assumption analysis:
Make sure you have identified as many assumptions
and risks as possible. Have you talked to everyone involved?
Have you looked at the project from all angles?
Make sure your assumptions are stated specifically
and are not too vague. You can't assess risk accurately if you
are working with generalities.
Do you have plans at each level to manage
the risks you have identified?
If the risks you're not able to manage are
too high, consider redesigning the project or, if you still
can't reduce these to sensible levels, reconsider the project's
viability.
Again, where this process exposes issues with
your Logframe, update it appropriately.
Step 5: Determine the Indicators of Achievement and Means of
Verification
When you are satisfied with the structure of the Logframe so far,
and are comfortable that you can manage the risks related to your
assumptions, you can move on to think about how you will monitor
progress towards success.
Performance indicators are the specific measures
used to monitor this progress. Here are the criteria for a good
indicator of achievement:
Valid – it must measure the intended result.
Reliable – the measure must be consistently
attained over time.
Sensitive – the measure should respond to
changes, and should sufficiently-quickly identify if things
are going wrong.
Simple – the measure should be easy to collect
or perform.
Useful – it must help with decision making
or provide information for future learning.
Affordable – you need to be able to afford
the financial and time costs involved in taking the measurement
on a regular basis.
Using these criteria, for each goal, purpose,
output and activity, indicate what will be used to determine whether
it was successfully achieved. Also note who will be responsible
for setting these targets.
Then indicate exactly how you will verify that
achievement. What sources of data will you use? How will you collect
the data? How often?
Make sure that appropriate activities are in
place within your plan to set up and manage these monitoring systems.
Click
here for an example Logframe.
Key Points
The Logical Framework Approach is a great technique
for making sure that your project plan is robust and coherent.
By using it, you significantly increase the likelihood that your
project will be successful.
Firstly, it provides a useful framework for
working through the design of your project with key stakeholders,
making sure that you can take full advantage of their knowledge,
insights and experience.
Secondly, it provides a useful process for testing
and checking your project plan, making sure that it contains all
the necessary activities, is based on sound assumptions, and fairly
weighs and manages the risks inherent within the project.
Thirdly, it helps you ensure that appropriate
control measures are embedded within the project, meaning that
you can quickly identify where things are going wrong, and take
appropriate corrective action.
