Digital Library: Planning and Situational Assessment

Planning and Situational Assessment

Planning is setting planning goals and tasks for the planning period based on forecasting and defining the necessary resources for their realization. The result of planning is a plan, which most often takes the form of a written document. The planning goal is the result that the association wants to achieve during the planning period.

Planning can be defined as a future-oriented human activity. It covers the process of thinking about the future possibilities and dangers that the society may face. We can say that this is an organized way to reduce the uncertainty and business risk of the association in the future. Planning or thinking about the future in parallel with thinking about the past and the present is a complex activity that aims to actively influence future events in order to lead them to the future desired state of the company. How to achieve the greatest possible business performance and how to reduce the risk of future business decisions - these are the two main reasons for serious planning in the company. Planning, as the first function of management, is a continuous process that ensures the necessary changes to plans and the preparation of new ones based on feedback, including control.

In order to make the preparation for planning as concrete, efficient and, above all, successful as possible, it is good to follow a few recommendations:

1. Goals setting – students who set goals and are tasks oriented invest their time in ways that need to achieve their goals;
2. Reduce distraction – put away  unnecessary distraction from environment and /or social media;
3. Set time limits – allocate specific times to tasks and then stick to those times. When time runs out move on to the next task; monitor your time and set deadlines;
4. Reward achievement  - when students achieve goals it is important they are rewarded for their efforts in managing their time effectively;
5. Master the schedule

Here we distinguish:

Strategic planning includes assessing the company's essential problems (threats) and opportunities, checking and establishing the basic concepts of the company's development, providing opportunities for the company's long-term business success and predicting likely business results. Based on strategic planning, the company decides on its growth, makes short-term - tactical and operational - decisions, responds to changes and demands of the environment and, if necessary, reorganizes operations.

Tactical planning is linked to strategic plans, while taking into account the company's operations in the past year and taking into account all important changes in the internal (within the company) and external environment (in the environment that has an impact on the company's operations). Since the plan is designed for the short term (business or calendar year), we can assess the impact on the company's operations with considerable certainty (more than with long-term planning) and predict the development of events based on the decisions made.

Operational planning is limited to shorter periods of time, and its basic tasks are to ensure the continuity of the planning process and the greatest possible short-term (monthly, quarterly, half-yearly) performance of the association. The subject of operational planning of business functions are individual business functions in the company (sales, procurement, production, finance, etc.), and the planning criterion is the optimal utilization of given capacities.

All strategies are just a piece of paper if not implemented properly. We often hear people complaining about procrastination. This is one of the most common reasons for task failure. Timely execution of priority tasks becomes our main step in planning.

The daily work plan allows us to determine the course of the day and thus gradually progress towards our goals. Every day counts both urgent and important tasks that need to be balanced, starting with the most important tasks before everyone else. Breaking your goals into pieces makes it easier to progress and achieve them. We also suggest that you divide the time into “focus” days and preparation days. Preparing for task planning is extremely important from this point of view.

One of the very useful planning tools is the so-called Eisenhower matrix, which is presented below:

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix

	Urgent	Not urgent
Important	DO Do it now	DECIDE Schedule a time to do it
Not important	DELEGATE Who can do it for you?	DELETE Eliminate it

Planning decisions are often made quickly; sometimes in the absence of a thoughtful analysis of available data.  A Situational Assessment is  a systematic process to gather, analyze, synthesize and. communicate data to inform planning decisions. Information from a situational assessment can be used to inform the goals, objectives, target audiences and activities of a different sectors' strategies.

Six strategic steps for conducting a situational assessment

Step 1: Identify key questions to be answered

The first step in a situational assessment is to determine what you need to inform planning decisions. Use the three broad questions (and sub-questions) to shape the direction of the situational assessment and develop your research questions:

1. What is the situation?
2. What influences are making the situation better and worse?
3. What possible actions can you take to address the situation?

Step 2: Develop a data gathering plan

Questions you develop in the first step will determine data needed. Too much data can become overwhelming; . Ensure your data gathering plan includes diverse types of data (e.g. community social or health status indicators, environmental scans, or best practices); different methods of data collection (e.g. surveys, document review, and literature review); and varied sources of data (e.g. partner organizations, community, umbrella of voluntary organizations and/or government).

Step 3: Gather the data

Now that you have identified the research questions and developed a data gathering plan, the next step is to collect data. It is important to note that there are two types of data collection - primary and secondary data collection. Primary data is data that you and your situational assessment team collect yourselves; secondary data is collected by someone else; for example, by the provincial or federal government, a researcher, or a partner organization.

Step 4: Organize, synthesize and summarize the data

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis or a Force Field Analysis can help to determine to detec tor/and improve the situation.

Step 5: Communicate the information

Colleagues, partner organizations and decision makers are all interested in your findings. Therefore, it is important to communicate key findings to each of your stakeholders in a manner that is understandable to each distinct audience.

Step 6: Consider how to proceed with planning

It is now time to utilize your findings and decide on your next steps. Consider what are your next steps in the planning process. Could you proceed, or must revisit research questions, project scope or resources.

A situational assessment, although time consuming, is an important part of planning an evidenceinformed program. The steps, highlighted above, simplify the process into easily manageable, strategic tasks.

Significance in Times of Crisis (e.g. pandemic)

A volunteer, especially in times of crisis, needs a range of knowledge, skills, and competencies developed at a high enough level to master the field of volunteering works successfully. As volunteering becomes more specific and increasingly demanding (new target user groups, the impact of different cultures, health status, social status, material status, Etc.), key skills, including planning as an important organizational skill, is crucial. Last but not least, the acquired skill from volunteering are also transferable to other sectors.