Last week, we focused on the initial questions to ask before you revise your plan. These questions help you know how it has been used and what has worked well or could be improved. The answers to last week’s questions will inform your revision process. This week, there are three more questions to consider when revising your plan.
- What resources do you have available? Two primary resources that need to be considered are time (particularly staff time) and funding. Do you have one person (or multiple people) who have both the capacity and expertise to guide the revision process? Do you need to seek outside support in facilitating the process or drafting the plan? When does the revision need to be completed?
- What process do you want to use? Depending upon your resources as well as consideration of how your primary audience has used the plan, what has worked well and what could be improved, do you need to have a formal revision process with several meetings of your primary audience (key stakeholders)? Or is this something that mostly staff and/or a contractor can help you revise and then you can seek feedback from your primary audience on areas to be revised? You may want to consider a combination of these approaches. Since you already have a plan, you may want to work on revising the plan based on feedback and then host video webinars with key stakeholders in each area of the plan to provide recommendations and suggestions. You may also want to involve electronic surveys or ways for people to provide comments on the revision.
- What people need to be involved? This depends upon your resources, process and interest from your stakeholders and coalition members. Do they have the time, capacity and interest in actively participating in the revision process? Considering last week’s questions, how have they used the plan and who has used the plan more than others? You will need to have someone on staff guiding the process even if you decide to hire a contractor or facilitator to help with the revision. You will also want to engage those who most commonly use the plan in the process. One of the approaches we have taken in the past is to identify key leaders in each area of the plan and invite them to participate. If these key leaders are able to participate, then they are included in the active revision process. If they are unable to participate, we give them an opportunity to provide feedback once a draft has been developed (usually via electronic survey or email).
There is no “right” process. It really depends upon how in-depth your revision needs to be, the resources you have available and the stakeholder interest and support.
So what about you? How have you decided on your revision process and who needs to be involved?
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