SW645 Week 3 - Program Planning, Development, Marketing, and Evaluation
[How do organizations decide what programs and services to offer?}
Chapters 2 – 4 in Brody would be worth reading.
In the real world, organizations make program decisions in response to many different variables. A board member might get an idea about a service or model and develop enough interest to persuade the board to implement the idea. And it might or might not work, depending on a number of variables.
[What variables might influence the success of such an idea?]
Good program planning requires an environmental analysis.
[What would you want to consider in an environmental analysis?]
One map of the external environment might ask you to consider these:
Social Factors
Demand for service
Potential support for or opposition to services
Availability of staff
Policy Factors
Rules and regulations
Licensing and permit requirements
Economic Factors
Funding mechanisms
Costs
Pricing
Physical Factors
Location
Building needs
Equipment needs
Technical Factors
Professional practices and procedures
Information management needs
You may also need to consider various internal factors such as board support, staff support, need for new staff, availability of space, and the mix between programs (and clients).
Those are some ideas about program planning.
[How does that fit with program development, marketing, and evaluation?]
Let’s jump first to marketing. Many people confuse sales with marketing. They are not the same thing. Let me illustrate sales.
I might develop a new product called I’ve Got It!, “a scientifically developed body spray formulated not only to increase your self-confidence but also to send pheromone signals to others so they will unconsciously know how confident you are!” I will figure out how to position this product and how to promote it. (Late-night TV might be an option.) I’ll do whatever I can to sell this product.
Contrast this with marketing. In marketing, I study the market to figure out what people want. This is usually done through what is called market research, and you have some ideas about how that might be done from your research class. Common methods would be surveys and focus groups.
The difference between sales and marketing is that marketing involves finding out what potential customers want and need, and sales involves letting people know what you have to offer. They often fit together, but they are different.
Now, let’s throw in the evaluation piece. Let’s assume that you are operating some programs.
[How do you know if they are being effective?]
[What are some things you might consider as signs of effectiveness?]
[Explain the logic model, and the difference between outputs and outcomes.]
[Explain key performance indicators.]
If you use evaluation effectively, it will tie into the topics that we’re covering today. Evaluation will identify opportunities for improvement in your existing programs, and it will identify opportunities for new programs.
[How are you going to make sure your evaluation system provides both kinds of data?]
Before we wrap up, we need to talk a little bit about program development. What is program development? It’s the process of developing programs. It’s more than just planning, and it’s more than just implementing. Good program development starts and ends with good research, but we’re talking about several kinds of research. It involves market research, as we’ve already discussed, and it involves outcomes research, as we’ve also discussed, but it also involves library research, i.e. finding out what kinds of programs and services have been shown to be effective. If you’re smart and your lucky, you won’t have to invent new programs. You’ll be able to find descriptions of programs that have been shown to be effective, and sometimes you’ll even find detailed materials that you can use in your program. Perhaps as important, you may find information about things that did not work or things that did not work as intended. You can save yourself a lot of time and money if you’ll use the professional literature.
And when you’ve implemented a new program or done a major program revision, whether it worked or not, you might want to consider publishing your research. You can help other people provide quality services or help them avoid some pitfalls. Either one is valuable contribution that you can make.