CNI At Barra Science Festival 2023
Project planning
In the context of CNI, a project will aim to develop, deliver or operate a facility or initiative in the community. It will serve to implement the Community Climate Action Plan.
For any significant project, action or intervention there are a series of activities and tasks which need which have different requirements and characteristics.
1. Exploration and Formation
- Need and basis of the proposal confirmed.
- Lead development group/body constituted.
2. Feasibility and Options
Preferred options identified and early agreements (such as heads of terms with landowners) secured where necessary.
3. Planning and Permitting
Planning and other permissions secured to allow development in earnest and exclusive rights secured as now often have monetary value.
4. Development and finance
- Finalised construction and/or operational plans.
- Financial close and/or funding secured wherever necessary.
- A confirmed mandate and support in your community for the detailed project plan.
5. Construction and Realisation
- Buy in construction/technical expertise.
- Carry out elements of the project e.g., install turbine.
6. Operation and Maintenance
- Project runs and begins to benefit the community
- Funding reporting and maintenance planning
7. Decommissioning and Restoration
The project is closed in a planned way, maintaining assets and resource where possible.
8. Legacy
Project evaluation-including learnings which are shareable with both your own community and others.
Broad timescales should be assigned where possible. With this and the main elements of the project action plan, it is possible to progress and identify potential resources. Additionally, it allows you to identify people you may need to work with, or influence.
Alongside this timeline, for all but the most minor activities, most of these stages usually require simultaneous action and planning across several parallel workstreams. Typically, these can be described as:
- Technical
- Financial
- Legal
- Stakeholder and Community
It is also good to recognise these parallel workstreams and plan for how you manage this simultaneous working and how they can be inter-dependent, with each often interacting with and sometimes being dependent on or rate-limiting other actions.
Top tips for Project Planning:
- Thoroughly discuss, test and challenge your ideas as early as you can. This establishes early clarity but is also at the cheapest time with least commitment and avoids wasting time later when more resources have been committed.
- Build in appropriate contingencies for time and cost throughout, based on the level of knowledge and uncertainty at any point.
- Usually the level of required commitment, effort and costs will grow throughout the development stages of a project. But every piece of information confirmed, and agreement or permission you secure, can itself create value that recognises the work you have done. If you record all unfunded work that has been put into the project, this can be used in accounting as part of the value of your project and as match funding when applying for external finance.
- Always consider the costs, work and commitments required throughout the whole life cycle of the project from the outset. Crucially, how things will be operated and maintained over a sustained period and shut down and removed at the end of activities. Larger projects will likely need commitments and finances formally agreed in advance for various permissions, funding and other agreements. Understanding and properly planning will help to avoid later failures and difficulties.
- Often some level of external and expert knowledge and advice will be needed during your project. As a successful project developer, it will be important that you understand the proposal enough to be able to assess what you are doing and ask all the necessary questions. Also provide detailed information and discuss it with your community and users. This is often best achieved by using a range of different specialists and experts in the field to provide the detailed answers and information that will help to inform you.
Raasay Group Discussion
Yell Landscape