Development Planning and Management Course

Organisation Development and Training (Olive)

Invites you to attend
A Development Planning and Management Course

1. Why do planners and managers need this programme?

• Most development programmes are not adequately informed of all the important contextual issues, which results in a failure of interventions and little impact in the lives of people.
• All stakeholders involved in development recognise the need to work together in an effort to bring about effective change in the lives of people, however many still battle to collaborate during analysis, planning and implementation phases and thereby continue to work in silos.
• As a result, conflicts tend to delay development processes, interventions are duplicated and resources are wasted.

2. Outcomes of this training programme

• Organisations will be more able to conceptualise, plan and monitor and adjust their plans.
• Development interventions will be conceptually informed, integrated and as such contribute towards the sustainable reduction of poverty and the impact of HIV/AIDS.
• Development institutions, such as government and the various civil society organisations will be more able to identify create and sustain useful partnerships.

3. The purpose

The purpose of this course is to ensure that planners and managers from different kinds of organisations and project teams are exposed to and engage with a wide range of participatory planning tools and methods, which could be applied at a national, provincial, district and local levels of society.

4. What will Olive offer?

Olive will offer a development planning and management course with the following components.

4.1 Designing development interventions

This aspect of the course carries two main components, namely the contextual analysis and the situation analysis.

The contextual analysis covers 5 broad contextual dimensions, which planners need to take into consideration before they plan development projects. These are the economic, socio-cultural, institutional, ecological and political dimensions. Participants will be exposed to a range of tools, which could be used to analyse each of the dimensions in a given geographical context.

The situation analysis covers the analysis of specific concerns around an identified issue, the potentials and aspirations of different groupings, which may exist, the needs, interests and roles of the different stakeholders and the varying options, which planning teams could follow to address the identified concerns.

4.2 Planning Development Interventions

This part of the course assumes that participants have had an exposure to the design tools, concepts and processes mentioned in 4.1 above. It equips participants with the tools to plan development strategies. It enables planners to visualise and articulate the intended changes with target groups and the products, which will be developed and delivered by project teams, in whatever way they are structured. It also exposes planners to tools in order to set indicators of success and to identify possible risks in order to monitor them.

4.3 Planning the implementation of operation

This step offers the skills and tools to identify the actions/steps, which project teams need to accomplish in order to develop and deliver effective products. The tools also clarify responsibilities within project teams, the timeframes, inputs and budgets required to accomplish tasks. This step clarifies the terms of references for project teams and enables them to hold each other accountable to manage and monitor their work.

4.4 Monitoring Evaluation and Adjustment

This part of the course highlights aspects of planning, which are subject to monitoring, and those, which are subject to evaluation. It offers a range of monitoring and evaluation tools, give participants an opportunity to explore different types of monitoring and evaluation processes, which normally take place inside organisations or project teams. It also provides an opportunity for participants to explore the internal requirements for monitoring to occur smoothly, and how organisations and project teams could make use of information gathered through monitoring and evaluation processes in order to adjust their intervention strategies.

4.5 Working in teams

Many development processes require organisations to collaborate with others in order to avoid duplication, share resources, their different capacities and learn from one another, in an attempt to reach the desired shared goals. In such processes, monitoring, teamwork and decision-making is often challenging. This part of the course offers insight and allows participants to reflect on issues, which could hinder teamwork in development planning processes, and how to minimise conflict. It also exposes participants to a range of tools to understand self, others and to develop balanced inter-personal relations within project teams.

5. Target Group

The course will benefit development planners and managers within civil society organisations, municipalities, provincial and national government departments as well as managers of corporate social investment programmes.

6. Olive’s approach

• Uses a case study relevant to development issues and processes taking place in SA , to provide a contextual and an information base to apply the tools.
• Offers space for site visits, (preferably linked to the case-study), for participants to experience and engage with the development challenges facing households and their institutions, in attempting to intervene in poverty situations.
• Offers an opportunity for participants to use site-visits to question and learn about the general development practices and challenges at district and local levels and share their experiences and insights with hosting institutions with respect.
• Provides theoretical input around planning methodologies, tools and techniques
• Provides appropriate literature for reading.
• Uses role-plays to heighten awareness around a range of challenging scenarios, which are often encountered during planning and implementing development interventions.
• Provides space to practice the application of tools into the case study, individually and in groups.

7. Course structure & costs

This is a 10-day course divided into 2 broad modules taking place in August and November 2005 respectively, and altogether covering 5 sessions. See chart below.

Dates Content Costs

Module 1

Week 1:
15 to 19 August 2005
(5 days)
Session1: Designing development interventions

Session 2: Situation analysis

Session 3 (a): Planning: focus on intervention strategies, i.e. setting project/programme objectives
R4 265.00

Module 2

Week 2:
14 to 18 November 2005
(5 days) Session 3 (b): Planning: focus on indicators, MOVs and risks/assumptions

Session 4: Plan of operations, i.e. activities, key performance indicators, timeframes and budgets

Session 5: Monitoring, Evaluation & Adjustment (what to monitor, how to monitor and what to do with information collected through monitoring)

Facilitation of teamwork with different stakeholders in development processes/projects, which enables effective developmental partnerships cuts across all sessions.
R4 265.00

*NB Participants are free to choose one or both sessions. Total cost of both sessions is R8 530.00

8. Venue
Both sessions will be held at the Blue Waters Hotel in Durban.

This Programme is non residential – please contact us for details of accommodation options in Durban. Please note that you are responsible for your own travel costs to and from the venue. Fee payments are not refundable should you cancel a week before each session.

For further information/confirmation please Email [email protected], Telephone 031 – 206 1534 or Fax 031-205 2114
Olive (OD and Training), 21 Sycamore Road, Glenwood, DURBAN, 4001,
South Africa, [email protected]

Olive (OD and Training) reserves the right to cancel this programme should there not be a sufficient number of participants attending these sessions.