Congress 2002
"Designing Programmes That Work"
Mark Bitel
Planning
for success: designing effective programmes
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Brothers,
Sisters, Friends and Colleagues
What
an honour it is to be with you today, to share with you some
of my thoughts about designing effective programmes. These
thoughts have been in development for about 10 years, during
which time I have played various roles from being a front-line
worker, serving prisoners and those affected by HIV, through
to my current role as a project development consultant and
programme evaluator. So I would like to thank the conference
organisers for arranging such a wonderful event and giving
me this opportunity to gather my thoughts together in preparation
for this lecture.
I
have given an alternative title for my lecture
planning
for success. For we all want the fruits of our labour, our
dreams and our visions to be successful. There are tips and
tools that I am going to share with you today that will help
you to shape your thoughts and ideas into workable programmes
that can be introduced into your communities and other communities
that you may wish to serve. These tips and tools will help
you to design programmes that are clear and well thought through.
Programmes that are designed to be clear and logical are more
likely to attract funding and are more likely to be successful.
I
could have come here today and shared with you a tool know
as the Log Frame, which is a planning tool that is used widely,
particularly in international development projects. But I
have decided to use clear plain language that is easily understandable
and hopefully clearer.
I
have also been reliably informed that IARF itself, is looking
to provide modest funding to support a variety of initiatives
Those of you that have chosen to attend the programme design
workshops will have a good opportunity to develop their ideas
with the guidance of our facilitation team. (Ask facilitators
to stand to make themselves visible).
For
a moment, I want each of you to think about your journey here
to Budapest. Before you confirmed your participation in the
Congress you probably gave some thoughts as to how you would
get to Budapest. For some of you it might have seemed like
a far off goal or an impossible dream to get here because
your funding support may not have been clear. But here you
are. You were successful in making it to Budapest.
Once
your participation was confirmed you had a clear goal: get
to Budapest in time for the Congress. You didn't just walk
out the door of your home and walk in any direction - for
if you had, it might have been only by chance that you managed
to get here. No, you had to plan your journey in order to
work out how you were going to achieve your goal. Some of
you will have had to get visas. Others will have had to buy
plane or train tickets.
And
so it is with project planning. You have to have a clear goal
about what it is that you want to achieve. What difference
it is that you want to make to the community that you wish
to serve?
Before
arriving at this point you need to work out what needs to
be done
you need to be clear that there is a real need
for what you plan to do. It is usually a good idea to consult
with other people (professionals and other members of the
community) before you make too many decisions in order to
check that you are on the right track and that other people
think that there is a need for what you plan to do.
Once
you have discussed your ideas with other people, then comes
the time for planning. I am going to introduce you to a very
simple tool that is a framework for planning. It is called
Weaver's Triangle (named after the woman who developed it,
Jane Weaver). [slide 1]
At
the top of the triangle you have the overall aim. The overall
aim tells everyone why your project or programme exists and
the broad impact that you want to have on the lives of the
people that you will work with. It describes the longer-term
effects or the impact of your project. The overall aim is
very general, such as improve the quality of people's lives,
and so it needs to be supported by more specific aims.
There
will usually be several of these specific aims. These will
describe the differences that your project will make to the
lives of the people it works with - the benefits they will
receive from being involved in your project. They describe
the smaller, bite-sized differences that you will make in
order to achieve the impact. These are also known as the project
outcomes.
At
the bottom of the triangle, you have the things that you will
do in order to achieve your aims. These describe the practical
activities that you will do in order to make the difference.
These are also known as outputs.
So
let's look at a couple of examples. The first example is a
multi-faith initiative. [slide 2] The overall aim of the programme
is to increase community cohesion between different faith
groups in a particular area or community. The specific aims,
or reasons for the programme, are to build understanding of
one another's cultures, to help identify common ground between
the groups, and to reduce tension and hatred between different
groups.
OK,
so what will they do to bring about these differences? Well
firstly, they will bring together community leaders in to
an organising committee to plan the activities and to ensure
ownership of the programme. The committee might decide to
run monthly seminars for adults about different aspects of
faith and traditions. They might offer joint educational activities
for children and young people. This could be through regular
events, or a summer school, or even trying to set up an integrated
school. They will run a lunch club for community elders where
they can socialise (play games and chat to each other). They
might invite each other to their festivals and celebrations.
And finally, they might run a joint outreach programme to
the needy, such as providing food for the poor or the homeless.
This type of activity would give them a common purpose on
neutral ground.
When
using the triangle to plan a project it is important to start
at the top - what is the big difference do you want to make?
- before deciding on the activities that you want to run.
This will ensure that your programme has a logical thread
running through it
that the activities that you will
run will actually make the difference and achieve the result
that you wanted to achieve. In my work, I come across lots
of very well meaning projects that don't have this logical
thread. Consequently, they are often less effective at achieving
the differences that you want to make.
So
Weaver's Triangle is a road map for your project. It helps
you to work out what your final destination is going to be
(your overall aim), what towns you need to pass through on
your journey (your specific aims), and what vehicles or modes
of transport you will use to get there (activities).
You
wouldn't have left home for Budapest without your travel plans.
So why would you try to set up a project without a clear plan?
I
have one more example to share with you. [slide 3]. This time
we have an educational programme within one faith community.
The overall aim of this programme is to ensure the survival
of religious and cultural traditions. The specific aims or
outcomes are to increase young people's understanding of their
religious traditions, to increase young people's knowledge
about their faith and heritage, and a key challenge for today
is make religious education relevant to the present time.
Notice that these outcomes should all be specific and measurable.
You should be able to work out methods to be evaluate your
progress towards achieving these aims. Planning how you will
evaluate the programme is also an important part of programme
design.
So
what activities will make these differences? Well, the people
designing this programme thought that they should run classes
with practical activities to grab the interest of their young
people. These might be through using computers and IT, using
local crafts to develop models of cultural artefacts and learning
how to prepare special foods that are part of religious festivals
and cultural life. They will take the young people on visits
to places of historical and cultural importance. They will
also offer social activities, where young people can mix with
each other undertaking constructive and fun activities. They
will run workshops in conflict resolution and community building.
These workshops will ensure that learning is participatory,
experiential and fun rather that simply instruction from a
teacher.
Because
young people often have a bad reputation with adults in the
community (for being lazy, or not being as well behaved as
we were when we were young), it was decided that the young
people should develop some practical projects through which
they could be seen to be doing something positive for the
community. They will also have an annual event where they
take the young people away from home for a week.
It is a great discipline to get the entire programme plan
on one sheet of paper. Weaver's Triangle helps people to focus
on what are the important differences, and the important activities
to include.
Communicating
your ideas clearly is part of planning for success. Somehow
the diagram helps to explain things and make it possible at
a quick glance to understand the programme and its logic.
Whenever I do a funding application for a client, I always
use one of these triangles.
Those
of you that will be participating in the programme design
workshops will be using the triangle to help you develop your
ideas.
Once
you have developed the plan, then you need to set targets
for how many of the activities listed in the lower segment
of the triangle are you going to run. How many people will
be involved? How many sessions? How many visits? How many
how much? It is necessary to develop these targets in order
for you to accurately plan what resources that you will need
in order to run the programme.
You
should not be too over ambitious with your plans. You should
try to be realistic about what you can achieve. It is often
better to start with something on a small scale and use evaluation
to demonstrate your effectiveness, and then to use your evaluation
to help you raise money to expand the activities.
Setting
clear targets can be difficult, especially if it is a new
programme. Sometimes you have to make educated guesses about
how many people the programme will serve. Having clear targets
will help you monitor how well you are doing while you are
running the programme.
It
is also useful in the planning stage to think about what might
go wrong
and to develop alternative strategies or contingency
plans in these cases. It is not always impossible to anticipate
every crisis or problem, but some of them are usually obvious.
If you can think about what you might do if you encounter
a particular obstacle, it might help you react better if you
hit this crisis. We don't always think best when we are in
a panic.
So
to draw this to a conclusion, good planning requires a good
idea where the need can be demonstrated. The good idea then
needs to be made practical. You do this by working out what
differences (or outcomes) do you want to make and work out
what activities will bring these differences about. You need
to set realistic targets for your outputs, ensuring that you
have costed in sufficient resources in your application to
enable you to achieve your targets. You need to develop ways
to evaluate if you have achieved your outcomes and have made
the differences that you hope to make (or have at least learned
from your mistakes). You need to think about what might go
wrong and develop contingency plans. Overall, you need to
be clear and communicate your clarity.
If
you follow these simple steps, it will help you to design
good programmes. And just to let you know, if you can do these
simple steps, you could also fill in a log frame (the thing
that I said I wouldn't teach you because it sounds too complicated),
because these are the essential elements of log frame planning.
I
look forward to meeting some of you that will be spending
time developing your ideas in the programme design workshops.
For the rest of you, I wish you well in developing clear programme
plan.
Enjoy
the rest of your time at the Congress and in Budapest, our
wonderful host city.
And
by the way, when you did your planning to get here, I hope
that you remembered to do your planning to get back home!
Go
well.
Thank
you for your attention.
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