How do you assess your project's impact?

1 Define your impact criteria

Before you start your project, you need to define what impact means for your specific context and scope. Impact criteria are the standards or indicators that you use to measure your project's success and relevance. These criteria should be consistent with the project's goals, vision, and mission, as well as with the expectations of stakeholders and customers. Examples of impact criteria include customer satisfaction and loyalty, revenue growth and profitability, market share and competitive advantage, social and environmental benefits, and innovation and learning.

2 Collect and analyze data

Once you have defined your impact criteria, you need to collect and analyze data that can demonstrate your project's performance and results. Data can be quantitative or qualitative, depending on the type and nature of your impact criteria. For example, you can use surveys, interviews, focus groups, testimonials, or case studies to collect qualitative data on customer satisfaction and loyalty. You can use financial reports, sales figures, market research, or metrics to collect quantitative data on revenue growth and profitability. You should use reliable and valid data sources, methods, and tools to ensure the accuracy and credibility of your analysis.

3 Compare and contrast

After collecting and analyzing data, it's important to compare and contrast your project's impact with your initial expectations, assumptions, and targets. This will help you to identify gaps, strengths, and weaknesses in the project's performance and results. You can use various methods and frameworks to make such comparisons, such as baseline and endline, benchmarking, cost-benefit analysis, and SWOT analysis. Baseline and endline will compare the project's impact before and after implementation. Benchmarking will compare the project's impact with other relevant projects or standards. Cost-benefit analysis will compare the project's impact with the resources and efforts invested in it. And SWOT analysis will identify internal and external factors that affect the project's impact.

4 Report and communicate

Once you have compared and contrasted your project's impact, it is essential to report and communicate it to stakeholders and customers. Doing so will help demonstrate your value and credibility, as well as share learnings and insights. To convey your project's impact effectively, use clear and concise language, visuals, and stories that are tailored to the specific audience, purpose, and channel. Examples of report and communication formats include an executive summary – a brief overview of your project's impact highlighting main achievements and challenges – a presentation with slides, charts, graphs, or videos; storytelling with anecdotes, quotes, or testimonials; or a dashboard with metrics, indicators, or scores.

5 Reflect and improve

Finally, you need to reflect and improve on your project's impact and use it to enhance your team's performance and reputation. Through feedback, evaluation, and review processes, you can assess the opinions and suggestions of stakeholders and customers, measure the effectiveness and efficiency of your project’s impact, and examine its strengths and weaknesses with your team. This will help you to identify the lessons learned, best practices, and areas for improvement. By doing so, you can deliver more value and satisfaction to your stakeholders and customers, while also improving your team's performance and reputation. Assessing your project's impact is not only a way to measure success but also a way to learn and grow as a leader.