Administration and management: budgets, people, and grants
Management items cover budgets, personnel, grants, and quality improvement - the operational layer that keeps a programme alive. Items test whether you can read a budget, protect essential functions under pressure, and manage people fairly.
Core rules
- Budget formats: line-item (by input category such as personnel, supplies, travel), programme or functional (by activity), zero-based (rebuilt from scratch each cycle), and performance-based.
- Cost vocabulary: direct versus indirect costs (overhead, often a negotiated rate), fixed versus variable costs, in-kind contributions (donated goods, space, or staff time - countable, not cash), and cost-sharing or match requirements.
- Grant cycle: proposal (scope, deliverables, timeline, budget justification, logic model), award, implementation, reporting, closeout, and a written sustainability plan. Diversified funding and institutionalisation beat last-minute scrambling.
- Personnel: written job descriptions, orientation, supervision, and performance appraisal. Motivation theories include Maslow's hierarchy, Herzberg's two-factor model (hygiene factors prevent dissatisfaction; motivators drive it), and McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y assumptions.
- Structure and risk: chain of command, span of control, matrix arrangements, written policies and procedures, MOUs and contracts, liability, and records management.
- Quality improvement: PDSA cycles (plan, do, study, act), root cause analysis, and run charts. QI is iterative, data-driven, and local - it is not research.
Worked example
A programme takes a 15% mid-year cut. Cutting evaluation and staff training first is the reflex and the wrong answer: it removes the evidence the funder needs and the quality control participants need. Better: use cost data to protect core components, replace purchased materials with in-kind venue and partner staff, reduce optional supplementary sessions, and document the cut's effect on reach so funders see the consequence.
Traps that cost marks
- Confusing indirect costs with in-kind contributions.
- Submitting a grant budget that omits indirect costs or match obligations.
- Treating sustainability as something to solve after the award ends.
- Calling a QI project research, or a research question quality improvement.