4. 1. Definitions
• Planning is the combination of compiling and
analyzing information, dreaming up ideas,
using logic and imagination and judgment in
order to arrive at a decision about what
should be done
• Planning can also be defined as systematic
method of trying to attain explicit objectives
for future though the efficient and
appropriate use o resources, available now
and in the future
5. Health planning is the process of
defining community health
problems, identifying needs and
resources, establishing priority
goals, and setting out the administrative
action needed to reach those goals
6. • Planning is deciding in advance what is to be
done, it is projected course of action for the
future
• To plan is to propose a forward program for
guiding the future affairs of an organization
• The planning process starts with the assumption
that the future will be different from the present,
and it attempts to determine how the
organization can take advantage of that
difference
7. • Planning thus becomes a device for change
• It is clear that individual activity and
organization activity without plan will be
ineffective
• if you don’t know where you are
going no road will get you there!
• All these definitions have common point, that
planning is a process that lays the base for
future action
8. • The important components of this and
other similar definitions are concepts of
– Where are we going (objectives)?
– With what (resources)?
– How (efficient and appropriate
implementation)?
– When (future)?
– Degree for formalization
(explicitness, systematic and method)
about the process?
9. 2. Rationale
• Planning is not confined to organizations
• At personal level most of us plan to some degree or
other
• We are constantly making decisions about our
future, ranging from what we will do tomorrow
through holiday plans to our careers.
Therefore, importance of planning is unquestionable
• The importance of planning:- it helps
– Coping with future uncertainty and changes
– Focus attention on objectives
– It obtains economic operation
• Provides performance standards and facilitates
control
• Helps foreseeing and identifying potential risks
10. 3. Scopes of planning
1. what is target client?
i. Population
ii. Institution
iii. Program
what the plan intends to address should be clearly defined
2. what is the target geographical region
or area?
i. Village/kebele
ii. District/Zonal
iii. Region
At what level you are planning has to be clearly defined
3. For what level of comprehensiveness should service
be planned?
11. Environmental Determinants Comprehensive Health Care
• Diet-sanitary preparation of
food
• Curative
• Avoidance of harmful life • Preventive
style
• Promotive
• Housing-sanitary housing
condition • Rehabilitative
• Unpopulated environment
• Freedom from stress
12. 4. Features of Planning
1. A good plan should give
– Clear vision, mission, goal and objective
– A clear picture of the tasks to be accomplished
– The resources needed to accomplish the task. In
terms of human, material, financial, and time
resources
2. Planning must be collective understanding
It requires the participation of
professionals (from health and other sectors)
Community (Non-governmental Organizations)
Government (Party)
13. 3. Planning takes place at all levels
1. Planning takes place at any level in health system
2. Planning takes place continually
3. Planning methods can be applied to
• Large program at nations level
– Malaria control program
• Small one-at village level
– Construction of community health post
14. 5. Types of Planning
1. Strategic planning
• often referred as allocative planning-normally five
years or more
• Strategic planning is the process of determining what an
organization intends to be in the future and how it will
get there
• It is finding the best future for your organization and the
best path to reach that destination
• Due to the rapid rate of change of today's world it has
become necessary for every dynamic organization to
keep their plan as current as possible through strategic
planning
• Strategic planning is often used in place of long range
planning
15. • SWOT Analysis
– Is a strategic planning tool that
matches internal organization
strengths and weakness with external
opportunities and threats
– By reviewing SWOT a useful strategy for achieving
objectives will become evident
16.
17.
18. • SWOT analysis defines the relationship
between internal and external appraisals in
strategic analysis
• It is an exercise in identification and analysis
19. In the health sector:-
1. strengths may be considered availability of
resources and trained human power
2. Weaknesses include lack of managerial talent and
obsolete facilities
3. Threats include adverse cultural believes toward
modern medical practice and growing cost of essential
drugs.
4. Examples of opportunities are clear and supportive
government policies and presence of functional health
committee in the communities.
20. 2. Tactical/Operational planning
– Is short-range planning that emphasizes the current
operations of various parts of the organization
– Short-range is defined as a period of time extending
only about one year or less into the future
– Managers use tactical planning to outline what the
various parts of the organization must do for the
organization to be successful at some point one year
or less into future
– Tactical plans usually are developed for organizations
in the areas of production, marketing, personnel,
finances and plan facilities
21. Comparing and coordinating the two types of plans
– In striving to implement successful planning
systems within organizations, manger must
remember several basic differences between
strategic planning and tactical planning
1. since upper level managers generally have better
understanding of the organization as a whole than
to do lower-level managers, and since lower level
managers generally have better undressing of the
day to day organization operations than do upper
level mangers strategic plans usually are
developed by upper level mangers and tactical
plans by lower level managers
22. 2. Since strategic planning emphasizes on the analyzing
the every day functioning of the organization, facts on
which to base strategic plans are usually more difficult
to gather than are facts on which to base tactical plans
3. Difference between strategic and tactical planning
involves the amount of detail in the final plans
4. Since strategic plans are based primary on a
predication of the future and tactical plans on known
circumstances that exists within the organization,
strategic plans are generally less detailed than tactical
plans
5. Lastly since strategic focuses on the long term and
tactical planning on the short term strategic plans
cover a relatively long period of time
23. Areas of differences Strategic planning Tactical planning
Individuals involved Developed mainly by upper Developed mainly by lower
level management level management t
Facts on which to base Facts are generally difficult Facts are generally easy to
planning to gather gather
Amount of details in plans Plans contains relatively Plans contain substantial
little detail amount of detail
Length of time plans cover Plans cover long periods of Plans cover short periods
time of time
27. 6. Steps in Planning
a) Situational analysis
b) Selecting priority problems
c) Setting objectives and targets
d) Identifying potential obstacles and limitations
e) Designing the strategies
f) Writing the plan
28.
29.
30. 1. Situational analysis
–First stage in the development of a plan
at all levels
–Helps provide broad basis of
understanding
–For two reasons
• It provides a common reference point for
the rest of the planning process
• It allows the selection of priority areas of
concern for planning content of situational
analysis
31. 1. Population characteristics
2. Review area characteristics and
Infrastructure
3. Policy and political environment
4. Analysis of health needs
5. Analysis of health services
6. Analyze resources
7. Review past implementation and
experience
32. • Population characteristics
–Study size, composition, and distribution of
the population
–Identify target groups
–Determine population size by category
–Estimate overall population growth rate
–Determine religious, educational and
cultural characteristics
33. • Review area characteristics and infrastructures
– Geographical and topographical situation
– Infrastructure
• Transport modes and routes
• Communications
• Water supply and sanitation facilities
• Utilities-including distribution of main electricity
– Socio-economic situation
• Change in patter of income distribution
– Public and private sector structures
34. • Policy and political environment
– Consider national health policy and programs and
relate it to actual situation in your own areas
– Analyze political environment
35. • Analyze the health needs
–There are essentially two
approaches to know society health
needs
• Medical indicators
–Community health surveys
–From records of health service
contacts
–Perception of health professionals
36. Community perception of need
–Surveys of attitudes and views of the community
members as to their health needs
–From existing community structures village
health or development communities or indeed
at the national level through democratic
representative structures
37. • Community perceived health needs
– Harder to define
– Often expressed in terms of service deficiencies rather
than health indicators
• Medically perceived health needs
– Morbidity rates
• Incidence
• Prevalence
– Mortality rates
• General population mortality rates
• Age specific one’s
– Disability rates
– Non-illness related needs
• Antenatal care, family planning
38. • Analyze health services
–Analyze organization structure and
functions of health services
–Service facilities
–Service utilization
–Service gaps
–Identify limitations/bottle neck in
organization structure
40. • Review past implementation experiences
–Find out information or experiences
from activities implemented in the past
–Success
–Short comings
41. 2. Selecting critical priority problems
–Competing needs and limited
resources
–The most critical and hardest
planning stage and yet cannot be
avoided
42. • Problem-is a difficulty or obstacle seen to exist
between a present situation and desired future
objectives
• It is useful to group problems under common
headings
– Environmental problem
• Poor sanitation
• Over crowding
• Lack of safe drinking water
– Disease or Health problems
• Malaria
• Malnutrition
• Respiratory disease
• Diarrhea
43. • Socio economic problems
– Low per capital income
– Illiteracy
– Poor equity in distribution of health services
– Cultural and religious habits
• Health Service Problems
– Insufficient drugs and materials
– Lack of qualified personnel
– Difficulty in visiting outlying areas
44. • Making such groups of problems helps seeking
common solutions
• There are always discrepancies between the
health needs and available resources. Hence a
health planner is obliged to take certain
problems first
• Priority problems are often selected by
setting selection criteria and giving scores for
each problem according to these criteria
45. • The selection criteria for priority problem are
– Magnitude of the problem
– Degree of severity (consequent suffering and
disability)
– Feasibility-in terms of cost effectiveness and social
acceptability of intervention
– Sustainability in terms of resources and
organizational capacity
– Community concern
– Political and social acceptability with
consideration of equity
– Consistence with multi-sectoral approach
46. • Consistence with governmental planning and
budgetary system
• Ranking health problems can be done using
criteria on five point scale
• 5-very high
• 4-high
• 3-moderate
• 2-low
• 1-very low
47. 3. Setting objectives and Targets
• Goals-are broad statements
– There is generally one goal for a service.
This might be health for all by 2000 and
beyond
• Aims-number of aims related to the goal
– They are specific to particular health
problem
– One might be to raise nutritional status of
women and children
48. • Objectives-for each program aim, there may
be a number of objectives which are specified
in measurable terms
– An objective for the above aim might be to ensure
that 95 percent of children are adequately
nourished
• Targets-For each objective there may be
various targets which specify various points on
the way to the attainment of the objective
– They are defined in relation to a point in time. For
example a target for the above objective might be
to ensure that 75 percent of children are
adequately nourished by 2002
49. • If the program is made to have an
objective and target it must be SMART
– S = Specific
– M= Measurable
– A = Achievable
– R = Realistic
– T = Time bound (Timely)
• Example by the end of 2002, 90% of
eligible children will be vaccinated
against six target diseases in Tigray
region
50. 4. Identifying Obstacles and Limitations
• Identifying the presence of any situation that may
prevent the achievement of each objective and target
• Resources
– People
– Equipment
– Money
– Time
– Information
• Environment
– Geographical features
– climate]
– Technical difficulties
– Social factors
51. 5. Designing the strategies
• Once objectives and targets are set, the
planner assesses the different ways
(strategies) for achieving them
• Choosing the best strategy entails analyzing
resources available and needed for each
strategy
• The potential strategies often include
technology to be applied, procedures to be
used and defining the role of communities
and other sectors
52. • For each chosen strategy, the corresponding
activities to be undertaken and the resources
needed should be detailed, including
– who will do the activities (job description of all
involved personnel)
– which things would be needed (equipment, and
money),
– where the work will be done and the methods of
controlling
• Determine resources required in terms of
proposed strategy the
time, staff, facilities/materials, and money
• Estimate strategy costs and assess adequacy
53. 6. Writing the plan
Out line of writing a plan
1. Summary
2. Problem statement
3. Objectives and targets
4. Strategies and activities
5. Resources needed and how they are going to be
utilized specify budget required
6. Monitoring and evaluation (periodic and end of
program assessment, how, by whom
, when, indicators of effectiveness)
54. • Gantt Chart-this is a bar graph with time on
horizontal axis and the resources/activities to
be scheduled on the vertical axis
• Main weakness of Gantt Chart-it lacks
information on interrelation of tasks to be
performed
55. • Human resource planning
– What types of people does the organization
need to reach its objectives
– How many of each type are needed
– What steps for the recruitment and
selection of these people should the
organization take
– Can present employees be further trained
to fill future needed position
56. – How does each category of organization members
improve his/her career, get promoted
– At what rate are employees lost from the
organization
– Why are employees lost from the organization
– What should be done to train competent and
experienced staff
57. • Why plans fail?
– The following are some important reasons why
plans are not successful
• Planning is not integrated into the total management
system
• A lack of understanding of the different steps of the
planning process
• Management expects that plans will be realized with
little effort
• Too much attempted at once
• Failing to operate by the plan
• Inadequate input in planning
• Unforeseen (unexpected) changes in the environment
