You’re working with multiple partners on a program. How do you know if it’s successful?

1 Define success criteria

Before you start working with your partners, you need to agree on what success looks like for your program. What are the specific objectives, indicators, and targets that you want to achieve? How will you collect and analyze data to track your progress and performance? How will you communicate and report your results to your stakeholders? Having clear and shared success criteria will help you align your expectations, activities, and resources with your partners.

3 Build trust and communication

Working with multiple partners also requires building trust and communication among your team. How will you foster a positive and collaborative culture among your partners? How will you communicate regularly and transparently about your program status, challenges, and achievements? How will you solicit and provide feedback and suggestions to improve your program? How will you recognize and celebrate your partners' contributions and successes? Building trust and communication will help you create a strong and supportive relationship among your partners.

4 Monitor and evaluate

To know if your program is successful, you need to monitor and evaluate your program performance and impact. How will you collect and analyze data to measure your progress and outcomes against your success criteria? How will you identify and address any gaps, risks, or issues that may affect your program? How will you use the data and insights to inform your program improvement and learning? How will you share and discuss your findings and recommendations with your partners? Monitoring and evaluating will help you assess and enhance your program quality and effectiveness.

5 Adapt and innovate

Working with multiple partners also offers opportunities to adapt and innovate your program. How will you respond to changing needs, contexts, or opportunities that may arise during your program implementation? How will you leverage your partners' expertise, resources, and perspectives to create new or better solutions for your program? How will you test and validate your innovations and learn from your failures? How will you scale and sustain your innovations and share your best practices with your partners? Adapting and innovating will help you increase your program relevance and impact.

6 Review and reflect

Finally, working with multiple partners also requires reviewing and reflecting on your program coordination. How will you evaluate your collaboration process and outcomes with your partners? How will you identify and document your lessons learned and best practices from your program coordination? How will you apply your learning to improve your future program coordination? How will you acknowledge and appreciate your partners' efforts and achievements? Reviewing and reflecting will help you capture and share your program coordination knowledge and experience.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?