What does a Project Monitoring Plan Contains?

 
 
  1. Monitoring Priority
  2. Who will use the info?
  3. Purpose of the Information?
  4. When is the Information Needed?
  5. Who will collect the data?
  6. How often will it be collected?
  7. How will it be collected?
  8. Proposed Monitoring Tool

Monitoring Priority:

This section covers the activity, process or indicator to be monitored. The monitoring priority is written clearly and defined in the context of the project to avoid any misunderstandings.

Who will use the info?:

This section requires the names of the persons/departments who need the collected information and will use it. It can be a person like Project Manager, M&E Manager, HR Manager etc or even a department like Finance Department, HR Department, Admin Section etc.

Purpose of the Information?

Every information collected has some application and use. Before collecting information it must be known what the collected data will be used for? Write clearly the purpose so that during collection of data the data colletor has the whole context and knows about the intended use of the information.

When is the Information Needed?

The information to be collected against the indicator or any project activity might be needed at the commencement of the project, at its end or its mid or at any other specific time. In this section that specific time is recorded so that the data is collected a the right time and can be used when required by project stakeholders.

Who will collect the data?

This portion consist of the name(s) of the person(s) responsible for collecting the data. This section identifies the people who will collect the data only for the specified "Monitoring Priority" listed at the start of the row in the Plan Table.

How often will it be collected?

The data to be collected might be needed once or more than once. Here in this section, the monitoring planner will specify the frequency of collection of data. The data might be needed once, twice, thrice or even on regular basis like weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, quarterly or yearly etc throughout the life time of the project.

How will it be collected?

This section provides overview on the process and mechanism of the collection of data. There are different methods to collect different types of data like Interviews, Focused Group Discussions (FGDs), filling Questionnaires, Observing, document Review etc.

Proposed Monitoring Tool:

When all the above details are finalized, like the type of data to be collected, purpose of data, frequency, method of collection and the responsible people, hence the monitoring person develops a tool to collect the required data in the required form. This tool can be a checklist, a Survey Questionnaire, discussion topics or other tools.

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