IN THIS CHAPTER YOU'LL LEARN
- How to prepare your social-impact analysis.
- How to develop indicators.
- How to collect data for the impact analysis.
- How to draw the right conclusions from this data.
Even with a set route, few journeys go exactly to plan. A storm front ahead, a current carrying you off course, there’s always something to respond to. For this reason, you should regularly check to see that you’re still on course, and that everything is going well with your passengers.
This is also true of project work. Are you still sailing in the right direction? Is the project going as hoped? What have you achieved thus far? Where sticking points are on the horizon?
A social-impact analysis will help you obtain the information necessary to enable you to say all this with certainty.
Impact analysis means recording, examining and evaluating all expected and unexpected results of a project.
In context of daily project activity, social-impact analysis means that you:
- regularly collect data,
- evaluate this data, and
- respond to the findings that emerge from this data.
can The impact analysis thus enables active project management. This means you:
- can react quickly to deviations from the plan, and
- can make more accurate statements about which changes in the project lead to what consequences.
Monitoring and evaluation are two key instruments used for social-impact analysis. We’ll look at each of these more closely later.
Ideally, project organizers will begin looking ahead to the social-impact analysis while still in the planning phases. But beginning the process is possible at any time, even in ongoing projects – better late than never!
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Don’t be afraid of impact analysis!
Social-impact analysis – it sounds daunting. It sounds like something that probably involves columns of figures, serious science, and a vast expenditure of effort or resources. Let us put your mind at ease on that concern.
Impact analysis is only as complex as you want, or as your resources allow. The crucial thing is recognizing that the data collected during your work will prove extremely useful in learning from your project and adapting it as you go.