Documenting ‘Success’ in Social Development Projects A Necessity, Skill and Challenge

Success stories in aid sponsored development projects provide innovative options to deal with social problems. The significance of success stories differs with stakeholders as per their needs and expectations. But, while writing success stories it is important to analyze various events and correlating them with the goal and objectives of the programme. Development sector follows specific steps to write success stories but there are some important requirements to fulfil these steps, which include process documentation, subject selection, well defining of key indicators, knowledge of research, writing skills and ethical approach. Poor process documentation, differences in the interests of stakeholders, creditseeking behaviour, job hopping in the development sector and lack of expertise are major challenges which affect the quality of documentation of success stories. Completeness of any success story lies in the fact that it has elements to come out from a pilot into a full-fledged programme.