The other
day I received a project proposal. It was 70 pages of long, repetitive
development jargon. I couldn’t bear to read it. So, I looked for the logical
framework to get a general idea of what the project was about: it dragged
itself for 6 pages. When I got to the activities, I had already forgotten what
the goals were.
And this is
not an isolated case. Project proposals, quarter reports, evaluations… they all
have a tendency to err on the long side. More is better must be the thinking
behind it. But is it really the case? In many cases, long, repetitive documents
try to hide the lack of substance of the projects that inspire them. So, if you
have not done much with the last two years of funding, write a long report so
that people will get ΓΌber-bored reading it and will not
dare questioning your work. I call these cases desperate and try to stay away
from them.
But there
are also cases of projects that have actually done a lot and are so willing to communicate
their results that end up incurring in the same mistake. Monster reports
stretching 30-40 pages with minor details are equally daunting for the reader.
How to
improve that? Visualizing information is the key to deliver important
information. It can be done with concept maps, mind maps, smart graphics,
geo-referenced maps, etc.
Here is a
fictitious example of a geo-referenced map of a WASH project. It takes few
minutes to put together with free software and adds a lot of value to any communication
material:
