Integrated & Painless Planning

It’s that time - you’re developing an Area/Country strategy or maybe emergency response plan, and you want to ensure integrated programming is an underlying pillar.

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Embedding integrated programming into a strategy or operational plan doesn’t require extra work – just better ways of working. Being people centered and grounding decisions in evidence based analysis will go a long way. Figure out what is the common objective(s) everyone can work towards, then you’re laughing!

And since you don’t work in a vacuum and need to bring it life, you’ll need to coordinate people, time, and budgets across teams (and maybe across departments, too).

Once you have an actionable draft, be sure to gather and incorporate feedback from different departments, as well as external stakeholders. Don’t get discouraged if you go through a few iterations before landing on a document everyone can get on board with. (They don’t call strategic/operational planning a “process” for nothing!)

Ready to dig in? Let’s do this.

Are you a…

  • Country Director wants to ensure the Programme & Support teams are speaking with each other
  • Head of Programme wants to encourage CC/thematic teams to share opportunities and failures
  • Programme team want to strengthen communication with peers and/or downstream partners, so programming opportunities and risk are flagged

Use this Game Plan to

  1. Create open lines of communication
  2. Build muscle around sharing updates
  3. Create safe spaces to speak candidly

Top Plays for a Integrated & Painless Planning

Mad Sad Glad Hot Debrief

Mad Sad Glad Hot Debrief

  • People : 5-10
  • Prep : 5 min
  • Time : 30 min
  • Level :

Quickly dive into the team’s feelings about the last joint event, and move forward productively.

My User Manual

My User Manual

  • People : 1-10
  • Prep : 45 min
  • Time : 30 min
  • Level :

A personal user manual is a fun way to share your individual preferences for how you like to collaborate and communicate. It can also be a great tool for getting to know each of your teammates beyond the work stuff.

Retrospective

Retrospective

  • People : 4-8
  • Prep : 5 min
  • Time : 30 min
  • Level :

Identify how to improve integration by reflecting on what worked, what didn’t, and why.

GamePlan in action

A team's sticky notes from an offsite Restrospective.

A team's sticky notes from an offsite Restrospective.

A team's sticky notes from an offsite Restrospective.

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