As stated in Handout 1.1, the appropriate modality of planning for NGOs, and indeed for most other organizations, is the participatory planning. Hence, it is important for the leader managers of NGOs to be familiar with and develop skills in the process of participatory planning. The effectiveness of the planning process largely depends on how participatory is the process and how the process itself is organized.
What is Participatory Planning Process?
Let us first take a look at the planning process. The planning process can best be visualized as a sequence of activities leading to the formulation of plans including the provisions for their monitoring and evaluation to ensure their effective implementation. The sequence is often known as the planning cycle. Fig. 1 shows the planning cycle.
Strictly speaking, the monitoring and evaluation activities are not the part of the planning process; they come later at the time of implementation and afterwards. But
Where are we now? Situation analysis
Where do we want to go?
Objectives
Which route will we take?
Strategy
How will we get there? Programs How do we know if
things are going well? Monitoring Have we arrived where
did we plan? Evaluation
the provisions for monitoring and evaluation of the plans should be carefully designed at the time of planning to ensure the effective implementation of the plans. Hence, they are included in the planning cycle.
The planning process becomes participatory when all the concerned persons and groups who implement and/ or benefit from the plans are actively involved in making important decisions at all the steps of the planning cycle. In many organizations, the practice is to prepare plans only by the senior leader managers such as members of the governing boards and senior executives. At the most, they form a planning committee the membership of which again represents only the senior management team. Engaging the outside consultants either as members of the planning team or even independently for the purpose of preparing plans is also not uncommon. In all these cases, the problem is that the beneficiaries
and the ground-level staff members who are involved in implementing the plans do not have their say and contributions in making planning decisions.
The participatory planning process involves beneficiaries, other stakeholders and all organizational members who are to implement the plans, in deciding the outcomes of the various phases of the planning process. For example, they jointly assess the current situations in terms of the problems, issues, needs, opportunities and capacities of the organization and the communities it serves. They decide the objectives to be achieved and the strategies to be adopted while designing the activities to be implemented. Monitoring and evaluation indicators and measures are also jointly decided.
There are a number of reasons why participatory planning is more preferable to the non-participatory approach to planning. Participation generates commitment and ownership of all the concerned people and agencies, thereby ensuring better implementation of the plan than otherwise. Commitment is generated because participation allows people to understand the rationale, purpose, process and outcomes of the plan and to contribute to their formulation. Evidence suggests that participation also enriches the quality of the plan because of the use of collective analysis and judgment of all the concerned people rather than
Participatory Planning Involvement of beneficiaries and implementers in deciding
• Which problems and needs to
address?
• Which objectives to pursue? • Which strategies to adopt? • Which actions and methods
to employ?
• How to monitor and evaluate
the achievements?
Why Participatory Planning?
• Generates commitment and
ownership
• Develops better understanding of
the plan
• Enrich the quality of plan through
wider inputs
• Reflects and responds to the real
that of only a few managers or technocrats. Participatory planning allows for understanding the real needs and problems of the beneficiaries. Hence it reflects and responds to the reality.
How to Organize Participatory Planning Process?
In order to derive maximum benefit from the use of participatory planning, the process through which it is prepared should be properly and carefully organized. While the actual process may vary from one organization to another, a typical process of participatory planning in NGOs would involve several actions.
Planning Policy, Commitment and Structures
This is the responsibility of the top management (Board and Chief Executive Officer). They must agree on the need for planning and demonstrate enough commitment to be abided by the planning discipline. There is no point in planning if the intention is not to bring organizational and managerial actions within the framework of the plans in use. If there is an agreement on the usefulness of planning, the top management should decide the types and scope of the planning the organization would prepare to guide its actions in future. Here, there are a number of choices, and the top management must be clear as to what kinds of planning exercises would be most appropriate for the organization. The top management must agree and show commitment for using the participatory approach to planning.
Once agreed on the need, type and scope of planning, the next thing to do is the allocation of time and resources for undertaking the planning exercise. Depending on the type and scope of planning as well as the size of the organization and its planning preparedness, the time and resource requirements may widely vary. For preparing the comprehensive strategic planning for a fairly large sized organization may easily take a couple of months. A small organization planning for a year can do the job within a week. With high planning preparedness such as the availability of information and other planning structures like the planning unit, procedures and formats, the actual time and resource requirements can be cut down. If such planning structures are not already in place, it may be a good idea for the top management team to create them for initiating the planning process as an initial step towards organizing participatory planning.
It would be appropriate to formalize this decision at the meeting of the Board. An agenda to this effect could be presented in the meeting and the Board should decide the broad modality of the planning process before the start of the planning exercise. At this meeting the issue of the formation of the planning team should also be decided.
Planning Team
Many organizations already have some kind of planning functionaries (e.g. planning unit or committee) in place as a part of their management structures. In any case, most managers have planning responsibility and hence they are engaged in regular
planning process. These planning mechanisms would be involved in most planning exercises. However, if a major planning exercise (e.g. strategic planning, long-term planning or even an organization-wide operational planning) is to be carried out in a participatory way, it would be necessary to set up a planning team representing concerned groups of people and agencies. The main responsibilities of the team would be to lead the process of planning in a participatory way using professional and organizational expertise and producing the required plans.
The planning team should consist of one or two board members, chief executive officer, other functional executives, and in-charge of planning unit or committee as well as some representatives of close partner organizations, beneficiaries and other main stakeholders. If required, external consultants with planning expertise and experience may also be inducted in the team to facilitate the technical and behavioral process of planning and producing the final
documents. But the emphasis should be on developing and using in-house planning capability in the long run.
The board should prepare and formally assign a Terms of Reference (ToR) to the planning team including the broad guidelines, procedures and time frame for the entire exercise with stress on the need for making the process as much participatory as possible. If necessary, the team should receive and organize orientation on the planning process and participatory techniques. This would be the responsibility of the external consultant or the experienced members of the team.
Planning Methodology and Schedule
One of the first tasks of the planning team would be to meet and agree on the participatory planning methodology to be followed for preparing plans for the organization. Participatory planning requires the involvement of a large number of concerned people and agencies at the various steps of information collection, analysis and decision process. For this, various participatory techniques would be necessary. For example, participatory field works and documents reviews are necessary for data collection and compilation. Similarly, participatory review and decision making meetings and workshops are necessary for problem, need and capacity analysis, objectives and strategies formulation, and programs and activities development. These activities should be scheduled with appropriate timing and procedures.
A sample participatory planning schedule is given in Table 1, which should be adapted to suit the conditions and requirements of each organization.
Organizing Participatory Planning
• Develop planning policy,
commitment and structure
• Set up a planning team • Prepare planning
Table 1: Sample Participatory Planning Schedule
Steps in planning Participants Time Activity
Review of the existing plans and their progress (if applicable)
Top management, concerned staff members, beneficiaries, partners
Jan 2 Review meeting Review of the
organizational vision, mission and strategies
Top management, concerned staff members, beneficiaries, partners
Jan 2 Review meeting External situational analysis Top management, concerned
staff members, beneficiaries, partners
Jan 7 – 14 Survey Workshop Internal situational analysis Top management, concerned
staff members, beneficiaries, partners
Jan 14 – 17 Workshop
Sharing of situational analysis findings
Top management, concerned staff members, beneficiaries, partners
Jan 20 Meeting Workshop Prioritization of problems,
needs and issues
Top management, concerned staff members, beneficiaries, partners
Jan 20 Meeting Workshop Establishment of long-term
goals, strategies, objectives and programs
Top management, concerned staff members, beneficiaries, partners Jan 22 – 23 Planning Workshop Estimation of resource requirements and availability
Top management, concerned staff members, beneficiaries, partners
Jan 22 – 23 Planning Workshop Preparation of program/
functional targets, activities and monitoring and evaluation procedures
Top management, concerned staff members, beneficiaries, partners
Jan 26 – 28 Planning Workshop
Preparation of detailed work plans
Top management, concerned staff members
Jan 30 – 31 Meetings Preparation of operating
budgets
Top management, concerned staff members
Feb. 3 -5 Meetings Presentation and
finalization of plans
Top management, concerned staff members
Feb. 8 – 10 Document ation Meetings Who is responsible for
what? Staff and volunteers
Top management, concerned staff members and volunteers