2.11. Steps in Project Selection/Screening : -

Since the focus of this guidebook centers around to improve the skills in writing project proposal, the identification and selection process of a candidate project with a view to write proposal thereon is listed below in a point-wise basis rather than in details.

Recognize the types and natures of projects you have identified

Establish operational nature of your project

Do basic homework (whatever is needed )

Find out the funding agency or sources to project

Understanding the interest of funding agency

Check whether your and sponsor's interests are  matching

Prepare  and  forward  project  proposal

2.10. Sources to Projects : -

The above discussions give a broad idea about the origin of different types, nature, and scale of projects. Alternatively, we may call them as the sources of projects.
Sources to project, on the other hand, refer to those individuals or  organizations that give life to an identified project. In other words, each and every identified project, if it is to be implemented, needs the involvement of certain amount of investment (financial and non-financial) to be committed by someone else. So any person or organization taking interest to invest and manage a project may be alternatively called as project animator or project sponsor or " Sources to Projects".

2.9. Project Identification and their Sources : -

Once we get a clear understanding about the concept of projects, our next step will be to identify the potential and useful projects that could be helpful to expedite the development process. Paradoxically, projects may be lying here and there in different sectors (agriculture, health, education etc.) and in varying levels or ranging from grass roots to national levels.
Usually, project identification ideas come out from various sorts of problems those we face in our day to day life. Problems we face in our daily life may be looked from the perspectives of improving the existing situation of people, community, and organization at varying levels. On the other land, project ideas also may pop  up to exploit promising opportunities which are either directly observed in different fields or are recommended by research studies, workshops, seminars, reports etc. Anyhow, most of the projects may be identified in relation to 

2.8. Project and Project Proposal : -

•  Interlink

A proposal is the guiding document of a project. Virtually, success of a project is largely determined by its project proposal document. In other words, a well-designed project proposal may leave no room for confusion and convulsions while undertaking and performing project activities. So there is a close interlink between the future goings-on of a project and its proposal document.

• Uniqueness

Depending upon the type, scale, and nature of projects each and every project will have its own uniqueness from different dimensions. So it is not possible to provide a standard format for improving the project proposal writing  skills equally applicable for all types and natures of projects. We have to develop our individual project proposal  writing skills by ourselves.

2.7. Reasons for Top-Down Project Failures : -

Usually, projects designed under top-down approach are experienced to face failure from a number of reasons. Some of the key reasons  for their failures are as follows :

Ambiguous project objectives set on the basis of insufficient information and unreliable data while planning the project and designing its M &E system;

Conflicts in set objectives of different projects that are working to achieve the common goal of a program-me;

Absence of field-based experienced and/or qualified personnel to design and carry out projects;

Lack of proper communication between project planning (central) and project implementing (local) agencies;

corruption at higher levels  in the name of  local level development;

No timely release of budget from the cent-re;

2.6. Project Approach in Planning : -

It has been already said above that a plan is a representation of vision and projects are the real action units undertaken in order to achieve the goal envisioned in the plan. Hence a plan vision may be based either on top-down or bottom-up approach.
The practice of formulating plan, program-mes and projects at central level and pushed down to the field level for its implementation is known as top-down approach. Here the requirements and interest of local people while selecting and implementing projects are not taken into consideration, in general. Local people, in such case become just onlookers rather than the actors in doing development works.

2.5. Project Characteristics in Common : -

Despite the different types and natures of projects we observe in different sectors and in different levels, all of those necessarily reflect a set of common characteristics.

Common Characteristics of all Projects

Objective 
each and every project needs to be guided to achieve an objective or a set of objectives.

Investment  
every project requires certain investment of resources  (money, material, time, information or technology, manpower,etc.)

Space        
Every project needs space be it physical, aerial, aesthetic, political, cultural etc

System      
all projects need to undergo a system of inputs- process - outputs.

Cycle        
every project will have its own phase-based cycle. In other words, every project starts from its identification and ends up with evaluation. Depending upon the type and scale of a project, phases of project cycle may vary from project to project.

Project Cycle Phase : An Example

Project A
Phase I Identification
Phase II Formulation
Phase III Implementation M & E

Project B
Phase I Identification
Phase II Formulation
Phase III Appraisal
Phase IV Implementation M & E

In the above project cycle example, there are only three phases in project ''A'' whereas there are four phases in project ''B''. In other cases there may be many more phases as well. All this largely depends upon the type and nature of a project. However, in general context, we can say that every project will have invariably three phases and they are:

• Pre-project  implementation phase (including all activities starting from project identification to project appraisal);
• Project implementation phase (including monitoring and on-going evaluation; and
• Post-project implementation phase (conducting impact evaluation).