How do I make a plan?

We make plans in our head all day long. We have so much experience in planning that putting together a strategic plan for our inclusion work should be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

The more complex the situation the more difficult it is to make coherent plans. There are few fields of work which are as complex and as broad as the field of inclusion so it is no wonder that NAs often find it difficult to know where to start.

In order to put together a strategic plan, NAs will need two important tools:

• first, the Inclusion Strategy of the European Commission (which outlines the global goals of inclusion in the YIA programme until 2013)
• and second the result of your NA's needs analysis from the pervious phase.

These tools present two sides of the same coin: the expectations of the EC and the situation of the National Agency. Both of these need to be taken into account at each of the three steps in the planning process.

• You can download the Inclusion Strategy of the European Commission at www.salto-youth.net/InclusionStrategy/

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Step 1 - Identify potential action areas

The EC's Inclusion Strategy highlights a range of possible action for NAs to take within the broader frame of inclusion (for example increasing numbers, improving quality, developing tools, eliminating obstacles, etc.).

The same can be said of your needs analysis. It is likely that during your information-gathering you spotted many areas where it could be interesting (or where it is urgent) for your NA to invest its inclusion time.

Unfortunately, National Agencies cannot respond to all inclusion needs nor do they have enough resources to develop every interesting new idea.

Being strategic is about making choices (Olsen) but in order to choose we must first have a clear idea of what our options are. We need to identify our potential action areas.

A potential action area is any area, positive or negative, where the facts indicate that something could or should be done. Identifying potential action areas basically involves making an inventory of all actions that are interesting or necessary for the NA to do in order to improve their inclusion work.

Different methods can be used to make this inventory. One helpful and thorough technique is to use the SWOT summary from the end of the Analysis phase to highlight areas where your NA could invest, mobilise, make decisions or control damage

• this is sometimes called a "SWOT Interplay" - see the Toolbox-section for a detailed description of this method

Another way is to simply brainstorm and write down all the different types of action that you can think of which are relevant to the NA at this time.

Remembering the global goals of the Inclusion Strategy on one hand and taking account of the points raised in your needs analysis on the other, consider the following questions:

• What can we do that will help our NA achieve our purpose in inclusion?
• What activities will do this?
• Do our actions/activities today make sense in terms of the EC's strategic framework?
• Are there other things we should be doing?
  

Try to answer each question in terms of:

• new opportunities
• new contacts
• improving the activities/services of the NA
• improving systems and processes inside the NA
• education and training (inside and outside the NA)
• addressing problem areas or urgent issues
• addressing leftover or incomplete goals and actions in inclusion (e.g. from last year, from a previous strategy, etc.)
  

In this step you are looking for any and all feasible areas for action. Don't limit yourself in the brainstorming phase - put down all your thoughts about what could or should be done in inclusion on national level.

Your result at the end of Step 1 is a list of potential action areas. It is likely that you can immediately recognise certain actions which are not realistic or which are not essential to the NA at this point in time. Cross these off your list immediately.

The remaining list of points is probably still fairly long. It would not be efficient to try to take action on every one of these so the second step in the planning process requires the NA to prioritise.

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Step 2 - Choose priorities

Step 2 is the most difficult point in the strategy-making process - the moment when you have to determine the best opportunities for your NA as well as identify areas where action is most urgently required. This involves choosing your priorities.

There is no doubt that some of the choices to be made here are serious ones but all the background work you have done up to this point will make the process easier. Thanks to all the preparation in the earlier phases it is not likely that you will choose the wrong path now.

There is no one fail-safe method for choosing your priorities. Inclusion is a particularly difficult area to prioritise because the spectrum of target groups is so diverse and the number of potential actions is huge. One way to determine priorities is to pair different potential actions and on the basis of comparison choose which of the two has higher importance.

• This technique is called a "Paired Comparison Analysis"- see the Toolbox-section for a more detailed description of this method

If you prefer a more informal method, review your list of potential action areas and then ask yourself the following questions:

• What is our NA best qualified to offer in order to address the areas identified?
• Is anyone else already doing what we can do? If so, do we have anything to add?
• In the areas where we are qualified, where can we make the most significant difference? Where can we effect the biggest changes with minimum investment?
• What are the pros and cons of the different potential action areas?
• Will this make the best use of the NA's resources?
  

After considering the answers, start to prioritise the action areas. Ask yourself:

• What is most important for our current and future work?
• What is too serious to ignore?
  

Your aim in this step is to reduce your long list of potential action areas to a short list of priorities

• It can sometimes be helpful to make two separate lists to distinguish internal from external priorities

The final list of priorities is extremely important as it will serve as your reference in the phases still to come. Should you ever feel uncertain about what you should be doing or where you should be investing your inclusion time, your list of priorities will provide you with the answers.

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Step 3 - Defining objectives and desired results

You have now drawn up a clear list of priorities for your NA but you may have noticed that these are still very much "up in the air". The priorities are not yet very precise nor do they fit into any kind of definite framework.

The last step in the Planning phase is to flesh out the priorities by defining objectives and desired results that the NA wants to reach in each area.

A priority is really nothing more than an idea which has been prioritised over other ideas. It is not possible to "do" a priority (just like you cannot "do" an idea). Before we can start "doing" (that is, before we can start to take action) we must first define objectives for what we are trying to accomplish.

An objective is the object or aim of an action (Allen).
An objective states what is to be done and indicates the results to be achieved.

Defining meaningful objectives may take a bit of thinking but you can make the process much simpler by beginning at the end - by determining what specific results you want to achieve. After all, if you know where you want to end up, it is much easier to say what needs to be done to get there.

Choose one of the priorities from your list. Ask yourself

• What exactly do you want to achieve in this area?
• How much / how many do you want to achieve?
• For whom (which target group)?
• Within which timeframe?
  

The answers to these questions are your desired results. Once you know the results you want, express exactly what you will do to achieve them. This formulation is your objective.

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