What is the Project Logical Framework? It’s a very interesting concept and it is very consistent with the idea of “Value-driven Project Management” that I believe is so important to the future of project management, but it would probably be difficult to apply in its full form to many projects. The best way to describe it is that it’s like a Balanced Scorecard for projects:
The Project Logical Framework is a way of understanding the alignment of all the activities in the project with the business goals that the project is intended to accomplish. That’s very consistent with the idea of “Value-driven Project Management” that I think is so important to the future of project management. Too many projects get consumed in the details of meeting detailed requirements and lose sight of the business value that the project is intended to produce, and there have been many projects that have met their cost and schedule goals for delivering well-defined requirements but failed to deliver an acceptable level of business value.
How Does the Logical Framework Support Value-driven Project Management?
It’s very important to focus on the “why” of the project before you get to absorbed in the “what” and the “how” it will be accomplished.
- The “why” defines the fundamental business value that the project is intended to provide
- The “what” defines the project outputs that the project is intended to produce to achieve those goals
- The “how” defines the detailed activities needed to create those outputs
Visualizing the alignment of activities (the “how”) with project outputs (the “what”) and finally to the goals (the “why”)of the project helps to:
- Prioritize the activities in the project to maximize the business value that the project produces
- Minimize or eliminate activities that don’t contribute to accomplishing project goals
The Vertical Alignment
“The first column of the 4×4 matrix shows the project logic (also called intervention logic) – hence the name logical framework. On the bottom row, you’ll find the project’s activities. When the activities are completed, we expect them to lead to tangible outputs. All the different results together will help to achieve the project’s purpose (sometimes called ‘specific objective’). This is the main reason why the project was conceived in the first place. It is the problem that you want to resolve. In a broader context, the project’s purpose will help achieve one or more goals (or ‘general objectives’), which you can find in the top row. The term ‘project logic’ means that one thing leads to another:” – Source: What is a logical framework? | Logframer
The way it works is as follows:
- the activities lead to tangible outputs.
- the outputs lead to the project’s purpose.
- the purpose contributes to one or more goals.
The Horizontal Alignment
“This first column containing the project logic is about things that are under our control – more or less that is, especially as far as the goals or general objectives are concerned. Jumping directly to the last column, you’ll find the things that are not directly under the project’s control, but that may influence its realisation in a positive or a negative way. These are called assumptions, and they can be found in the fourth column. We speak of assumptions, because when we describe the project’s logic in the first column, we assume that everything goes well. But generally, this is but a mere dream, so we should take precautions to deal with these risks as best as we can.” – Source: What is a logical framework? | Logframer
The way it works is as follows:
- When we do the activities, and our assumptions hold, we’ll achieve the expected outputs.
- When the outputs are achieved, and our assumptions hold, we’ll realize the project’s purpose.
- When the project’s purpose is attained, and our assumptions hold, we’ll contribute to the listed goals.
Overall Conclusions
The Project Logical Framework is an interesting tool and the concept is valuable, but it certainly isn’t appropriate for many projects in its full form:
- On a positive note, the value of the logical framework is that it keeps the focus on the business value that the project is intended to be produced by the project and that is definitely a good thing. Too many projects get lost in implementing detailed requirements (the “what” and the “how” of the project) and don’t put enough focus on the business value (the “why” of the project). As a result, there have been many projects that met their goal of delivering detailed requirements on schedule and on budget but failed to deliver an acceptable level of business value.
- On the other hand, implementing this tool in full detail could easily lead to “analysis paralysis” and would be most consistent with large, complex projects with a heavy emphasis on upfront planning. It would probably not be appropriate in its full form for small, simple projects that lend themselves more to a flexible and adaptive Agile approach.
- The use of this tool needs to be consistent with whatever the project methodology is. In its full form, it is most consistent with a traditional plan-driven project. It’s difficult to see how it would be applied to an Agile project except in a very abbreviated form.
My overall conclusion is that the concept of this is definitely sound, and it is consistent with the idea of “value-driven project management”, but the implementation needs to be done in a way that is consistent with the overall project methodology. The key point is to fit the tool to the nature of the project rather than force-fitting a project to a tool.