WEEK 5: Introduction to program planning & management

Question 1

What is program planning?

Answer 1

Program planning involves an interative process that follows clear key steps that also involve planning for monitoring and evaluation.

Systematic process of identifying a community’s health needs, designing and developing interventions to address those needs, implementing the interventions, and evaluating their effectiveness to improve the overall health of a population.

Question 2

State the 4 principles of program planning.

Answer 2

1. Tie Programs to Mission & Strategic Plan
2. Conduct Program Planning as a team
3. Take a Population Health Approach
4. Plan Key Indicators of Program Success

Question 3

Describe the 5 steps of program planning.

Answer 3

1. Problem identification: problem needing intervention is identified and causes of the problem analyzed. Who, what, where, when. how?

Goal & objective setting: what should the intervention aim to address in relation to the problem – SMART

3. Designing implementation plan: detail how goals & objectives are going to met (inputs, outputs, process & outcomes)
4. Implementation & service delivery: implementation plan set in motion
5. Monitoring & evaluation: integral to entire process – key feature to all phases, is applied at each stage of the PMC.

Question 4

State 6 Key Frameworks/Models to Guide Program Planning.

Answer 4

1. PRECEDE-PROCEED model
2. Theory of change
3. Community Action model
4. Planned Approach to Community Health (PATCH) model
5. Intervention Mapping
6. Logic Model

Question 5

State the 4 Program planning Steps

Answer 5

Step 1: Conducting a Situational/Needs Assessment
*What is the problem?

Step 2: Setting Program Direction
*SMART goals, what is the program trying to achieve and how?

Step 3: Determining Program Elements
*Deals with determining inputs and activities

Step 4: Conducting a Program Evaluation
*The process of obtaining, analyzing, interpreting, and reporting on this data to describe how the program has worked.

Question 6

State the importance of a program planning

Answer 6

*Provides clarity and direction for achieving a desired health outcome

*Ensures efficient use of resources

*Helps in anticipating challenges and developing solutions

*Facilitates collaboration among stakeholders

*Enables monitoring and evaluation for continuous improvement

Question 7

State some of the challenges of program planning.

Answer 7

Unclear goals/objectives

Limited resources

Changing conditions: political, economic landscapes

Lack of data