Project how much each indicator will change by
Projections are not targets. They are ‘best estimates’ of results, by a given date in the future, based on current information. Use the information you gathered during the diagnostic process to help you make realistic projections.
Programmes tend to draw on estimates of the size of the current market (eg traded or consumed volume/value) or the size of the service access frontier. These estimates establish a projection ‘ceiling’, within which intervention strategy-based projections are made as to the proportion of the market or access frontier that their work will conservatively impact.
Estimates may not be exact, but they are important. They help you make decisions. Projections allow you to compare the expected benefits of interventions with their estimated costs and decide whether an intervention is value for money, ie likely to result in sufficient and sustained developmental impact to justify its cost.
Projections are, therefore, most useful when they are reviewed and updated regularly. They are also more useful when timebound: you should project how much change will occur and by when it is forecast to occur.
Take care that staff do not begin to chase projections, misinterpreting them for targets. Targets and year-on-year milestones are a topic for programme-level discussion in the context of the overall programme logframe. Managers should not delegate targets directly to intervention staff as this incentivises more intensive and direct intervention and may undermine sustainability.
Use your intervention results chains to remind staff of their immediate focus on system-level change, the causal logic of intervention, and the importance of not taking shortcuts.
Reality check: Project and communicate clearly
Funders can be impatient to see results during the early stages of a programme’s life, because it takes time to achieve impact. This can be addressed by making and sharing realistic projections to give your funder a concrete sense of what the programme is likely to achieve. Communicate clearly that these are projections only, and explain key assumptions. Your projections should be conservative. Some programmes use an ‘optimism bias factor’ to reduce their projections, eg only using 70% of any estimated impact figure.