One of the most important skills for a team leader of any organization is proper project planning. Considering all necessary resources — including time, money, and labor — and any possible risks that may occur. But even before that: what is the problem your community faces? How can you solve it? And in how much time?

Answering these questions, and making plans from start to finish, was the theme of a 3-part class taught by ARI staff. Using lessons inspired by those taught at the Japan International Cooperation Agency, ARI staff and participants together designed projects to help fix a simple problem: Low vegetable production in the community, one faced by virtually every participant’s home regions.

Divided into groups, participants performed SWOT analyses on this model community, devised a project goal to help achieve vegetable production, then wrote specific achievements and necessary tasks to help produce this project goal.

By creating a trial project to test their ideas, participants could see the importance of a thorough advance project planning session can achieve stronger results. By putting all ideas on the table at once, they can create projects with realistic goals, achievable benchmarks, and with fruitful results for all in their communities.