QA Comm and Adv

The Centre’s communication and advocacy services are mostly commissioned by institutional clients from the ILO constituency or by ILO development partners, such as UN agencies. The purpose, objectives and expected outcomes of these projects therefore typically align with the Centre’s broader mandate and arguably contribute to the achievement of its programmatic objectives.

For proof of concept, the Centre estimates upfront the project’s likely contribution to its own institutional technical and financial targets, expressed in qualitative and quantitative KPIs set as part of biannual programming cycles.

The financial and technical parts of each communication and advocacy project proposal are standardized, and financial standards are enforced by a Contract and Finance Committee. Compliance with technical standards is monitored by the Office of the Director of Training, and the final decision to go ahead is subject to approval by both the Director of Training and the Treasurer.

To initiate a communication and advocacy project, the Centre sets up a project team led by a project manager. The team will typically comprise technical experts, including a project manager from the Learning Innovation Programme and, depending on the nature of the assignment, technical experts from other Technical Programmes and even the project sponsor, often supported by consultants and external service providers.

Under the leadership of the manager, the team plans the project, defines the project organization, defines project governance and management, and identifies stakeholders.

To facilitate the planning activities in practice, the project team usually invites the key project stakeholders to a design-thinking workshop run with the help of the ITCILO Design Kit.

Detailed planning of the project, including task assignment and timeline development, takesvplace at this stage. The Centre uses various digital project management tools and methodologies to track task assignments and deadlines.

Depending on the complexity of the project, work is organized into work packages.

Depending on the complexity of the work package and the nature of the tasks, the work is assigned to a work package leader, either a technical expert from the Centre or an external resource person. In both cases, the work involved is by default defined and planned upfront in consultation with the project manager and monitored by way of a project implementation plan.

The Centre uses a range of digitally supported project implementation planning applications, adjusted to project complexity, budget and client expectations.

The purpose of oversight activities is to enable the client (sponsoring organization) to verify externally that the project objectives are being achieved within a dynamic and often changing context. Oversight focuses on key performance indicators linked to outcomes.

The Centre involves the sponsoring organization in key decisions by way of periodic online sprint meetings during which the project team reconvenes with the project stakeholders to review progress and, where applicable, modify the project implementation plan. The Centre also issues periodic updates on progress, validated against KPIs agreed upfront in the project implementation plan. More specifically and depending on the needs of the clients, the Centre issues progress reports or, alternatively or in addition, provides weekly data snapshots or sets up data dashboards to facilitate tracking of KPIs in real time.

Depending on the agreement with the client, the Centre might also carry out internal end-of project evaluations or facilitate ad hoc external reviews and audits of its performance.

The Learning Innovation Programme, in close consultation with the project stakeholders and - where applicable - after seeking clearance from The Office of the Director of Training, is directly responsible for ensuring that:

• the project vision and objectives are being communicated with strategic assumptions, and criteria have been set for measuring the project’s success;
• there is ongoing justification for the project and that the business case is being updated where applicable;
• the solution, in terms of outputs, outcomes and expected benefits, is likely to meet the needs of the organization;
• appropriate and competent resources are being used;
• work is terminated when the organizational justification is no longer supported.

The purpose of controlling is to ensure internally that project implementation is following the critical path. Controlling involves the monitoring of a wide set of operational-level indicators.

The Centre uses the following result-chain model to monitor and evaluate the performance of its communication and advocacy projects:

the Centre makes a distinction between key performance indicators (KPIs) and operational-level/process indicators. KPIs track aspects of project performance that point towards effectiveness (doing the right things), while process indicators mainly track project efficiency (doing things the right way). Indicators can sometimes serve both purposes.

The choice of performance indicators at each stage of the results chain is project-specific. The same is true of performance thresholds, which are determined by project scope, ambition and budget. However, as observed in previous sections, selected KPIs are pre-set in all the Centre‘s communication and advocacy projects, cascaded from its institutional results-based management framework and intended to ensure that the project objectives align with the Centre’s mandate.

The project team verifies that all activities and work packages within the project scope have been completed/delivered and accepted by the sponsoring

organization. The closing activities usually involve a debriefing with the project stakeholders and the submission of a final technical report.

In addition, the project leader is to validate that all contracts for external resources and services have been satisfactorily completed, that all outstanding payments have been made and that all accounts receivable have been settled. Consequently, the closing activities might require the submission of a final financial report to the sponsoring organization.

Since 2022, as part of its annual reporting obligations at the post-project stage, the Centre has released aggregated statistics concerning the performance of its communication and advocacy projects, currently with the focus on KPIs related to inputs and outputs. The Centre carries out follow-up evaluations of project outcomes as and when contractually required by the sponsoring organization.

Depending on the nature of the agreement with the sponsoring organization, the evaluation findings are released to the public. The Centre also works with the stakeholders to share knowledge about the project outcomes and results. Subject to agreement with the sponsoring organization, these knowledge-sharing activities typically comprise of web articles and videos disseminated via digital media channels.