University of Caloocan City

Biglang Awa St Cor. 11th Ave Catleya, EDSA Caloocan City

Graduate school
Master of Arts in Educational Management
Program/Project Planning & Evaluation

THE PLANNING CYCLE

According to the Wikipedia, Planning is the process of thinking about the activities
required to achieve a desired goal. It is the first and foremost activity to achieve desired
results. It involves the creation and maintenance of a plan, such as psychological aspects
that require conceptual skills.

Planning - is the act of researching, analysing, anticipating and influencing change in

our society. (planning.org.au)

PROGRAM PLANNING CYCLE

- Do not think of planning as a straight-through process. It
is best to think of planning as a cycle.

In planning we should have three things to

consider. The People/stakeholders, Process, and what
Project/program do we have or we need to improve.

1. People
- they know what is the current condition.
- they know what are the problems encountered/ gives feedback.
- they are the one aiming for improvement and development.

2. Process
- It is about to start planning.
- Action needed to solve the problem.

3. Program/Project
- It is something that you want to improve or develop.
 University of Caloocan City
Biglang Awa St Cor. 11th Ave Catleya, EDSA Caloocan City
Graduate school
Master of Arts in Educational Management
Program/Project Planning & Evaluation

 Ingredients in Program Planning Cycle

By planning within this structure, you will ensure that your plans are well focused,
practical, cost-effective and measurable. You will also ensure that you learn from any
mistakes you make, and feed this back into future planning and Decision Making.

*Focus: It should be stakeholder based. Consider the people who is affected to the situations
that needs to develop or problems need to solve.
*Practical: Planning must be done based on the systems, processes and people that you
have in place. It should be determined by working within your existing capabilities.
*Cost-Effective: Adhere to the budget.
*Measurable: If you can’t measure it, how will you know when you succeed. Keeping score
will provide measurable results and will let you know how well the plan is being carried out.
People act on how they are measured. Good measures will result in good plans.

In planning, we should consider the worse possible problems to be encountered

and take action to prevent before it happens.

THE PLANNING CYCLE CONSIST OF THESE STEPS:

 University of Caloocan City
Biglang Awa St Cor. 11th Ave Catleya, EDSA Caloocan City
Graduate school
Master of Arts in Educational Management
Program/Project Planning & Evaluation

1. INITIATE
- The first thing to do is to do is to spot what needs to be done.
- Examine the current situation and decide what do we need to improve.
- Otherwise, other people may be pressing you to change the way you do things.

2. IDENTIFYING AIM
- Decide precisely what is the aim of your plan.
- Creating an objective or making a Vision and Mission.

If you are having difficulty in formulating the aim of your plan, ask yourself:
1. What do I want the future to be?
2. What benefit do I want to give to my customers?
3. What returns do I seek?
4. What standards am I aiming at?
5. What values do I and my organization believe in.

3. EXPLORING OPTIONS
- Generate many options so that you may come up which is the best.

4. SELECTING THE BEST OPTION

- Evaluate all options, carrying out detailed planning, costing, and risk assessment so that we
can select the best plan and solution.

5. DETAILED PLANNIING
- It is the process of working out the most efficient and effective way.
- It is the process of determining what specific task should we do?, who will do the task?,
when to start?, where do we start?, how?, why?, and at what cost?.

6. EVALUATION OF THE PLAN

- Review it to decide whether it is worth implementing.
- Evaluating the plan gives an the opportunity to either investigate other options that
might be more successful, or to accept that no plan is needed or should be carried out.
- It is about doing the final decision before we invest time, resources, and personal standing
based on the plan.
 University of Caloocan City
Biglang Awa St Cor. 11th Ave Catleya, EDSA Caloocan City
Graduate school
Master of Arts in Educational Management
Program/Project Planning & Evaluation

7. IMPLEMENTING
- Execution of the plan.
- It should also detail the controls that you will use to monitor the execution of the plan. Steps
that will help you complete the project:
1. Adhere to the schedule
2. Start as soon as possible on each task
3. Work on one task at a time.
4. Use critical path analysis to determine what to work on next.
5. Emphasize communication

8. CLOSURE
- We should check if we did it correctly.
- Identifying if the objective or the goal was achieved.

9. FEEDBACK
- include an evaluation of your project planning to see if this could be improved.
- carrying out an evaluation

*** When it comes to planning, provides constant feedback help us in the process of what
goes in another goes out.

PDCA CYCLE
• It is an iterative model for continuous improvement of the quality of processes and
products.

• a model for carrying out change.

• It is an essential part of the lean manufacturing philosophy and a key prerequisite

for CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT of people and processes.

• a simple four-stage method that enables teams to avoid recurring mistakes and
improve processes.
 University of Caloocan City
Biglang Awa St Cor. 11th Ave Catleya, EDSA Caloocan City
Graduate school
Master of Arts in Educational Management
Program/Project Planning & Evaluation

PLAN
At this stage, you will literally plan what needs to be done.

 What is the core problem we need to solve?

 What resources do we need?
 What resources do we have?
 What is the best solution for fixing the problem with the
available resources?
 In what conditions will the plan be considered
successful? What are the goals?

DO
 After you have agreed on the plan, it is time to take
action.
 At this stage, you will apply everything that has
been considered during the previous stage.
 Be aware that unpredicted problems may occur at
this phase.
o This is why, in a perfect situation, you may
first try to incorporate your plan on a small
scale and in a controlled environment.
 University of Caloocan City
Biglang Awa St Cor. 11th Ave Catleya, EDSA Caloocan City
Graduate school
Master of Arts in Educational Management
Program/Project Planning & Evaluation

o Standardization is something that will definitely help your team applies the plan
smoothly. Make sure that everybody knows their roles and responsibilities.

CHECK
 This is probably the most important stage of the
PDCA cycle.
 Here, you need to audit your plan’s execution and
see if your initial plan actually worked.
 Moreover, your team will be able to identify
problematic parts of the current process and
eliminate them in the future.
 If something went wrong during the process, you
need to analyze it and find the root cause of the
problems.

ACT
 Previously, you developed, applied, and checked your
plan. Now, you need to act.
 If everything seems perfect and your team managed to
achieve the original goals, then you can proceed and
apply your initial plan.
 It can be appropriate to adopt the whole plan if objectives
are met. Respectively, your PDCA model will become the
new standard baseline.
o However, every time you repeat a standardized
plan, remind your team to go through all steps
again and try to improve carefully.

 The PDCA cycle is a simple but powerful framework for fixing issues on any level of your
organization. It can be part of a bigger planning process
 The PDCA process includes a mandatory commitment to continuous improvement,
and it can have a positive impact on productivity and efficiency.
 The PDCA model requires a certain amount of time, and it may not be appropriate for
solving urgent issues.