Comparative Approaches to Program Planning

F. Ellen Netting, Mary Katherine O'Connor, David P. Fauri

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780470126417
• eBook ISBN: 9781119187950
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

"As a practitioner in the field for over thirty years, I have been exposed to endless 'planning' sessions that are prescriptive to the point of being oppressive. Thistext 'gives permission' to the practitioner to allow for emergence, uncertainty, and ambiguity in the planning process. Comparative Approaches to Program Planning provides a guide for the manager, administrator, executive director, strategic planner, and CEO to embrace multiple planning strategies and the understanding of each. This is extremely worthwhile in a dynamic environment and an ever- changing landscape and worldview."
— Paul D. McWhinney, ACSW, Director of Social Services City of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia

"This is the book I've been waiting for. It provides not only a linear approach to program design, but gives language to the tacit knowledge many planners have of the circular nature of their work. Both linear and circular thinking are important to planning processes and now we have a resource for teaching."
— Jon E. Singletary, PhD, MSW, MDiv, Baylor University, School of Social Work

The first text on program planning to guide readers in selecting program planning approaches appropriate to setting, culture, and context

Valuable for students and practitioners in the social work, public administration, nonprofit management, and community psychology fields, Comparative Approaches to Program Planning provides practical and creative ways to effectively conduct program planning within human service organizations.

Written by leaders in the social work education community, this innovative book explores program planning as a multi-layered and complex process. It examines both a traditional linear problem-solving model as well as an alternative emergent approach to program planning, helping professionals to successfully develop and enact effective and culturally competent planning in organizations and communities.

CHAPTER 1
Differences between Lines and Circles

Our romance with deliberate strategies has blinded us to the reality that all strategy is a pattern in a stream of actions involving both intensions and emergence.

—Henry Mintzberg, as paraphrased in Getting to Maybe: How the World Has Changed

Chapter Outline

• Lines and Circles as Planning Metaphors
  • A Brief History of Lines and Circles
  • Science and Reason
  • Positivism versus Interpretivism
  • Rational and Nonrational Thought
  • Rational and Nonrational Problem-Solving and Decision-Making
• Planning Theory: Both Lines and Circles
  • Examples of Planning Approaches
• The “Surety” of the Line and the “Tentativeness” of the Circle
• A Conceptual Framework
• Summary
• Discussion Questions

Assumptions upon which the chapter is built:

• Reason can be linear and nonlinear (or circular).
• Circular reasoning, sometimes called nonrational thought, is different from irrational thought.
• Both rational and nonrational thought have a basis in the history of decision-making and planning.
• Both rational and nonrational thought bring strengths and challenges to the program planning process.

Practitioners have many different experiences with planning programs. Starting new programs from the beginning is often the task of founders, and provides a unique set of creative challenges. Many programs are inherited, making it necessary to simultaneously redesign or make changes at the same time that one is carrying out current plans. Smaller organizations may have only one program, which means that planning the program is organization-wide, whereas within larger organizations various programs are units representing a range of sizes. These programs are siblings within a larger setting. Public programs are typically mandated by law and come with various regulatory strings attached. Yet other programs come to life from the grassroots up, being designed to address felt needs. Programs come in all sizes and forms, and some are considered models, demonstrations, or pilots as various constituencies watch to see if and how they “work.” Others are planned as replications of existing or earlier efforts. Programs can be described as being mainstream, alternative, hybrid, direct service, advocacy, and a host of other terms.

Thus, planning programs is not one unique set of activities that move in one specific way. For example, in a study of fourteen social programs, Goldberg (1995) found that no single approach to practice could be found and that “effective programs were developed with a variety of methods” (p. 614). We see program planning as an unlimited number of possibilities for creative thinking. For example, have you ever been in a situation in which someone said, “We’re spinning our wheels,” yet in the process something new and interesting emerged? What was that about? Conversely, have you ever participated in something that was highly planful, in which a very specific set of goals and objectives was guiding the effort, but it simply did not work no matter how close one stuck to the plan? In the former situation, “spinning our wheels” is a metaphor for going in circles. In the process new ideas were emerging even though it felt redundant and unfocused. In the latter situation, having a detailed plan and placing it over a changing context might have meant that no one (no matter how skilled) could have preidentified how things would unfold. The program planning process unfolds in different ways, depending on its unique context. One approach does not fit all situations. We believe that both are useful and that the skilled practitioner must learn when to use different approaches. Both can be based on evidence in a world that is smitten with evidence-based practice. As you will see, the evidence used may be somewhat different in what, where, and when data are collected and analyzed.

Over a period of years a case management project was funded by a large private foundation. A health administrator, a social worker, a physician, and a nurse collaborated in responding to the request for proposals (RFP) to evaluate the project. There were eight project sites around the country, all of which had received funding to implement their case management interventions in physician practices in their respective locations. Each site was embedded in highly respected health care systems with dedicated, competent staff. The evaluation team began traveling to each site to assess these projects—each designed within its specific contexts. Each had measurable objectives, and on paper every project looked feasible. However, given local preferences, different practitioners performed case management.

Some were nurses, others were social workers, some were physician assistants, still others were nurse practitioners, and some had mixed disciplinary teams. Every site used a different assessment tool, based on the current instruments used in its health care environment. The work location of the case managers were different, given that some were colocated in physician offices, others were in adjacent buildings, and still others were in a central location from which they moved between physician offices on a regular basis. As the evaluation team interviewed various participants in these projects, it became increasingly clear that the projects were “apples and oranges,” and the interventions were not the same, even though all were doing case management. Each project had its own culture, structure, and norms of intervention.

The team recognized that each project had to be evaluated based on its own objectives, not the overall objectives of the foundation because the projects were really not comparable. This was fine; but what they soon realized was that each project had its own challenges. A few were moving toward their objectives in what seemed to be a consistent way; however, the majority of sites were in constant flux given the changing nature of the health care field. Staff came and went; physician practices merged; patients’ needs shifted; interorganizational relationships changed—and on and on. Original objectives became obsolete as project needs altered. Further, patient input during the intervention revealed a whole set of needs that had not been originally identified. Yet the foundation held the projects accountable to the original plans they had proposed in their grant applications because that was what the projects had contracted to do. The evaluation team had difficulty remaining detached. In fact, every time the team made a visit and asked questions, new issues and concerns emerged about how a project had or needed to change to make it responsive to patient needs.

In this example, very well-written plans were still on file in the foundation offices, but many of them had become obsolete in the process of implementation. Being tied to these plans became a dilemma for staff and for the evaluation team. Without the latitude to change in midstream, it became clear to the evaluation team that these projects were propelling forward, actually “doing” things differently but “pretending” that the plans they had submitted were what they were carrying out. How many times have practitioners found themselves in situations where they remain tethered to obsolete plans because the plans did not allow for flexibility? How many times do experts write plans that do not consider client needs or the views of various stakeholders, feasibility, or context? How often do program coordinators inherit plans that look logical on paper only to find that they do not hold up in “real life?” How often do funders require a particular format that demands up-front outcomes when the “real” outcomes have to emerge in process? If any of these questions ring a bell with you, then you may find what follows to be useful.

LINES AND CIRCLES AS PLANNING METAPHORS

Some scientific thought distinguishes no difference between a line and a circle. This is supported by the idea that if you make the line long enough, it ultimately becomes a circle. Senge asserts that, “Reality is made up of circles but we see straight lines” (1990, p. 71). In this book we are concerned with lines and circles and what they have to do with how one thinks about and does program planning.

Metaphorically, lines and circles conjure up different images. Being linear includes moving in a concerted direction: upward, downward, backward, forward, or sideways. Circles also have directionality, but they go round and round, reconnecting with themselves. While linearity implies the ability to move in different directions, circularity means reiteration. Some things work better using lines, whereas other things work better using circles, and yet others work better using lines and circles at different times. For example, seams need to be straight. The seamstress who sews only in circles cannot make a seam! Yet wheels need to be circular in order to roll. A linear wheel could not exist or work, yet a circular wheel propels one forward in a splendid manner. Sometimes to roll things forward, the attention needs to move from the wheel to the axle (a line) that connects two wheels. The basic premise of this book is that program planning can be linear, circular, or a combination of the two—lines and circles. The key is recognizing when it is appropriate and feasible to plan in which of these ways.

It is helpful to look at the differences between lines and circles based on what they can represent symbolically in Western thought and what they have to do with program planning. To understand the choice-making patterns in decision-making that go into seizing opportunities and/or problem-solving of any sort, it is necessary to understand ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• CHAPTER 1: Differences Between Lines and Circles
• CHAPTER 2: Programs: Containers for Idea Implementation
• CHAPTER 3: Rational Planning and Prescriptive Approaches
• CHAPTER 4: Interpretive Planning and Emergent Approaches
• CHAPTER 5: Knowing When to Use Which Planning Approach
• CHAPTER 6: Program Planning in Diverse Cultural Contexts
• Glossary
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement