Productive Planning

Productive Planning:
How We Can Help

In a productive planning process, facilitators have several functions:
	develop an overall planning strategy in collaboration with the client,
	weave together many viewpoints from inside and outside the organization so that the plan reflects realities beyond the insular and immediate,
	draw on many models and techniques to create events which are interesting, fun and get good results,
	step outside the system and make observations about what is really going on between certain units or characters,
	help create a planning document at different levels for different purposes, so it is comprehensible to everyone who must use it.

Although every planning process is developed in collaboration with the client, in general the following steps and questions guide the method:

1.	Reflection on accomplishments what have we accomplished? what has made each of those possible? what has gotten in the way? how have we overcome the obstacles? what are our foibles and limitations?
2.	Data collection how do stakeholders see us? what are unmet needs we might fill? what have others done?
3.	Weather/climate assessment what are the current conditions for our work? what are the climate trends?
4.	Considering possibilities based on the above what else could we do? with whom could we collaborate? what are our criteria for prioritizing? what are our final decisions?
5.	Making the plan: nuts and bolts who does what when?

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© Mary Dingee Fillmore, 2004. Copy with permission from [email protected]