Result Based Management (RBM)

Putting Project on Paper

I attended a five-day workshop on Result Based Management (RBM) last week. It was a good starter for a beginner like me. The RBM is a comprehensive management approach introduced by the UN institutions and adopted by several bi-lateral organizations. It is a results-oriented/based approach. This aims at improving management effectiveness and accountability by defining realistic and expected results. It also involves monitoring progress towards the achievement of expected results and integrating lessons learned into making decisions and reporting on performance.

The RBM particularly focuses on reporting and corrective action established by assessing Actual Results and Planned Results. For a civil servant working in Planning and Policy Division and for Project Managers, the RBM is the right tool to be used. The RBM has a regular and institutionalized Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system that will gather information about achievement of results at any level in the Logical Framework Matrix (LFM). The LFM includes Input, Activity, Output, Outcome and Impact or Overall Objective of the project. The achievement of one goal leads to the achievement of the other. They are linked each other. That is why it is also known as the Results Chain.

Sample of a Project in LFM with Indicators and
Assumptions

In RBM, the planner has to look back from the Impact or the Overall Objective of the Project towards what should be done to achieve the goal. The result is thought first. To achieve that result/impact, necessary outcome, output and activities have to be initiated at the ground level.

Thus, the RBM provides a coherent framework for strategic planning and management based on learning and accountability in a decentralized environment. It appears first to be a management system and second, a performance reporting system. Our planners use this today. This is much more effective in terms of monitoring and evaluating a project.

It is also useful in our daily lives. The initiatives that we undertake in our life are nothing but small projects. If we know the steps the RBM follows, it will help us to organize our daily activities in a better way towards achieving realistic and planned results.