Wellington - Push Play Outreach
Good practice lessons – key issues, project responses and outcomes
Managing programme partner expectations
Managing expectations of programme partners was initially challenging. Partners were inclined to seek maximum value for their own organisation and took time to focus on collaboration. The programme has since moved to a point where programme partners collaborate well. The key to this change was the open communication between partners and open invitations to events so they could see the results of their input. Apart from information collected through the reporting process, the programme partners are now more aware of what is happening through the programme and how this fits in with desired outcomes.
Programme planning – use KPIs to help manage the scope of the programme
Push Play Outreach functions as: an events provider, supporter of community programmes, an organisation for up skilling community volunteers and an information/research provider. This diversity of work sometimes provides challenges in managing the programme scope and reporting on outcomes.
Planning and developing KPIs is a good way to manage the scope of the programme. “Is the scope of the programme too broad? Are we confident we have the know-how to manage this range of activities? Are the KPI’s easy to work with? Do they help make the scope of the programme clear and the outcomes realistic?
Push Play Outreach has five KPIs, which is a relatively small number. The range of activities captured under these KPIs is very broad. For example, the KPI “providing trailers (events equipment) to 60 groups or organisations per year” is simple and encompasses many different types of events. This is an example of KPIs that marry with the diverse activities covered by the programme, while not setting unrealistic targets that are difficult to collect data on and report to.
Programme Planning – taking a flexible approach to programme design and role descriptions
The Push Play team believe it’s necessary to be flexible and not too prescriptive when designing a programme. That is, make room for diversity within the community, and diversity among the programme co-ordinators themselves.
The communities are made up of many different groups who do not all want the same off-the-shelf activities. The Push Play Outreach team aim to support as wide a range of activities as possible. In this way, the co-ordinators main task is to be successful relationship managers/builders, and to connect with and help get active as many groups in the community as possible.
Each co-ordinator brings different personal styles and professional strengths to this process – for example a focus on youth or older people. The fact that the programme co-ordinators’ relationships skills are key to the success of the progamme, needs to be understood at the planning stage. Giving scope for individual co-ordinators to pursue relationship development in their areas of professional expertise should be balanced with managing the scope of the programme and working within agreed outcomes.
Updated | 07 Mar 2008.
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