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Management Plans: A Roadmap to Successful Implementation
February 2012
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Agenda i3 Framework Management Plan Structure Developing Measures
Sample Management Plan Mapping to Excel Next Steps
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i3 Framework Programmatic Goals Anticipated Impact
Enable grantees to expand and develop innovative practices that can serve as models of best practices Enable grantees to work in partnership with the private sector and the philanthropic community. Support eligible entities in identifying and documenting best practices that can be shared and taken to scale based on demonstrated success. Close achievement gaps Decrease dropout rates Increase high school graduation rates Increase college enrollment and completion rates Programmatic Goals Anticipated Impact The purpose of the Investing in Innovation program is to expand the implementation of and investment in innovative practices that are demonstrated to have an impact on improving student achievement or student growth for high-need students. Funded proposals can serve as models of best practices and the high-quality evaluation data obtained from the grants will enable the i3 program to contribute to the field of practice by publicly sharing successful interventions, and by supporting the replication of promising projects grounded in credible evaluation strategies. The anticipated impact for grants implemented with fidelity will result in promising outcomes, practices and strategies, cost effective scaling, and improved student outcomes.
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Cooperative Agreement
All FY 2012 i3 grants will be structured as cooperative agreements Grantees will annually submit an updated management plan that specifies key actions and milestones over the lifetime of the grant Cooperative Agreements Signed All Cooperative agreements must be reviewed and signed by ED by March 30, 2013. Management Plans Submitted Management Plans must be submitted 60 days after ED signs the cooperative agreement Mapping Management Plans Ongoing process with Program Officer As a condition of the cooperative agreement that all FY2012 i3 grants have been structured around, a detailed management plan must be developed. The purpose of developing such a plan is to support a grantee in implementing its i3 project. As you are all aware, cooperative agreements are to be reviewed and signed by ED by March 30, The management plans are due 60 days after ED signs the cooperative agreement. In addition, we are asking that grantees take the information provided in the management plans and map it into an Excel spreadsheet to facilitate tracking projects and for possible future import into an electronic grants management system. This will be covered later on in the presentation. While this may seem like a lot of work, it is helpful to remember that the i3 program is under a high level of scrutiny given the large funding amounts, and the potential impact that i3 projects may have on the field. Therefore, it is important that grantees and the program office begin this partnership with a clear set of expectations.
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Why Create Management Plans?
A Management plan is: A comprehensive plan for the project that clearly specifies intended objectives of the proposed project, including clearly defined responsibilities, timelines, and milestones for accomplishing project tasks. A Management plan helps: Establish mutual understanding about what a project aims to achieve and how it will be achieved. Identify possible risks and challenges as early as possible so that grantees can adjust strategies and the Department can offer assistance. A management plan is a comprehensive plan for the project that clearly specifies the intended objectives of the proposed project. The plan enables the grantee to achieve the objectives of the project on time and within budget, and includes clearly defined responsibilities, timelines, and milestones for accomplishing project tasks, as well as tasks related to the sustainability and scalability of the proposed project. Management plans serve as a tool through which grantees must first articulate a theory or strategy of change. They provide all invested parties with a clear understanding of what the project aims to achieve and how. The process requires grantees to move from the generalities that may have been expressed in the application to the specific details needed for implementation. With this information in hand and careful monitoring strategies, grantees are better able to identify gaps and potential roadblocks to success. Once the theory of change has been outlined, grantees will need to be able to identify a clear starting point. It may be helpful to conduct a readiness assessment of the organization and the proposed implementation sites. Where does the data suggest that the organization stands? Is the organization in the planning or research and development phase? Is a management team in place that will position the organization to achieve the intended result? Are partners and other key stakeholders clear on their responsibilities? What are the first steps that need to be taken in order to move this initiative from a great idea to a strategy for change?
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How Will Management Plans Be Used?
Project Definition and Management Grantees will be able to use well-defined management plans to track their progress against critical goals and activities. Performance Management Multiple Program Offices at ED will have a common template that will support alignment of activities across programs. This will help target support for grantees, based on grantees’ identified activities and needs, to minimize compliance burden on the grantee and maximize productive support from ED. Technical Assistance ED and external TA providers will be able to effectively and efficiently address the common needs of grantees that might have gone unidentified without common data. Grantees will also have the opportunity to collaborate with each other and share knowledge. Plans will be used as a tool to facilitate the change process. They will enable grantees to define and track progress toward stated objectives and goals. The plan will create opportunities for dialogue around best practices, knowledge management, risk assessment and technical assistance that may be needed. Information gathered will be used to strengthen project objectives, performance measures, and evaluation plans with an eye toward assessing impact across the program.
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Facilitating Change Performance Monitoring (how well)
Implementing Strategy of Change Annual Performance Reports (what happened) Performance Monitoring (how well) Continuous Improvement (how will data be used) The Department may utilize an electronic grants management platform that will enable the program office to move beyond the limitations of the current standards for data collection (Annual Performance Reports and Performance Monitoring). Annual Reports only allow for a retrospective view of grantee performance. This compliance driven reporting doesn’t allow for the rich data collection required to inform practice, guide policy, or drive change. Performance monitoring begins to move the data collection process forward in a manner that encourages the grantee and the program office to be accountable for actions that have occurred. Utilizing this form of data collection asks that we think about what was done well, and not so well. Our goal is to use the information collected from both the annual reports and performance monitoring for the purpose of continuous improvement. Data can be collected that looks at project level strengths and weaknesses, garnering insight into the interventions and supports needed throughout implementation in order to strengthen the project and ultimately achieve impact.
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Management Plan Structure
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Management Plan Components
There are four levels of information that the management plan should include: Objectives: What your project is doing to support the overall program goal (approved in application – cannot be changed) Strategies: What are the major initiatives/components of the intervention required to complete each phase of your grant in support of ultimately achieving project objectives? Activities: What are the key components that have to be completed in order for each strategy to be successful? Indicators: How progress is measured toward meeting objectives. What are the key milestones along the way that let grantees know they are on track? When we think about how to structure a management plan we need to remember that even the best plan is but a guide. Remember, it is not a set path and does not have to dictate every grant decision. The process of driving change is most effective when one considers that it is necessary to plan, implement, monitor, and revise repeatedly. The strategies outlined in the management plan will need to be mapped to an Excel document. When working within the Excel environment, data will be organized according to objectives, which look at what the project aims to do or accomplish in order to support the overall goal of the program. The next level consists of strategies, which are the major initiatives or components of the intervention that are required to move the grant forward. The third level looks at activities. The activities should drive the strategies--they are the day to day pieces that once completed should signal that the grant is on track to achieve stated outcomes and goals. The indicators serve as measures of success. Indicators, also referred to as performance measures, help you assess the extent to which project objectives are being met. When crafting your management plan, the responses you provided to the selection criteria in your funded application should help you to readily identify the objectives, practices and/or strategies, as well as the activities. The Departments’ expectation is that when you take the time to truly explore what you have written, that you are able to identify a clear path to accomplishing your goals. That begins with developing strong project objectives.
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Strong Project Objectives are:
Relevant Applicable Focused Measurable And result in: Measurable, realistic, and meaningful performance measures Successful implementation depends upon the ability to evaluate project impact on the process of change. Your objectives and ultimately performance measures will help you to assess this. Strong project objectives are: Relevant: The project objectives should be aligned to the overall goals of the program and to the proposed strategies; Applicable: The project objectives should relate to the specific activities that are being conducted through the project; Focused: The project objectives should identify one or two constructs of importance (e.g. build capacity, increase accessibility, enhance quality), but not so many that measurement becomes cumbersome; and Measurable: The project objectives should include constructs that are conceptually measurable through data collection strategies that are feasible to implement. And they result in measurable, realistic, and meaningful performance measures.
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Developing Measures Information in this section, was developed using resources provided by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University.
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Performance Measures You will be asked to report on two types of performance measures: GPRA- Measures established for reporting to Congress under the Government Performance and Results Act for the i3 program The percentage of grantees that reach their annual target number of students The cost per student served by the grant Project- Measures that the grantee establishes in their approved grant application to meet their project objectives. High-quality, measurable performance measures maximize the potential for meaningful data reporting and are associated with strong project objectives Why Is This Work Important? High quality objectives and measures: make it easier for you to measure your progress allow you to report progress easily and quantitatively As a recipient of a federal grant you will be asked to report on two types of measures in your Annual Performance Report (APR). The first are GPRA measures. They are program measures established for reporting to Congress under the Government Performance and Results Act. The two that your grant will report on directly are: -The percentage of grantees that reach their annual target number of students. This is reported as the number of students served. -The cost per student served by the grant Validation grants will report both GPRA measures, while Development grants will only report on cost per student. The second set of measures that you will have to report on are individual project measures. These are measures that you established in your grant application to meet your project objectives. As you look over and possibly revise your measures, remember that high-quality, measurable performance measures maximize the potential for meaningful data reporting and are associated with strong project objectives
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Performance Measures A performance measure is a measurable indicator used to determine how well objectives are being met. Consider the following: What is going to change? How much change will occur? Who will achieve the change? When do you anticipate the change? As you think about drafting these measures, keep in mind that the steps you take to create strong project objectives will enable the development of performance measures or indicators that determine the extent to which the objectives are being met. Performance measures should describe the level of change that is expected to occur as a result of project activities. Ask yourself: What is going to change as a result of the project? How much change will occur? Who will achieve the change? When do you anticipate the change? It is important to remember to develop outcome measures in addition to process or activity measures. We ask that grantees look beyond just completing an activity, or participation in an activity to assessing the value or impact of the activity.
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Performance Measures By the end of year two (when), at least 80% (how much) of principals enrolled in the Leadership Development Academy (who) will achieve scores of proficient or higher (what) on the leadership assessment tool. So when thinking about the four components of a good measure, we can see how that fits into the example on the screen: What is going to change? How much change will occur? Who will achieve the change? When do you anticipate the change? By the end of year two (lets you know when), at least 80% (reflects by how much) of principals enrolled in the Leadership Development Academy (tells you who) will achieve scores of proficient or higher (what will change) on the leadership assessment tool.
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Putting It All Together
A comprehensive set of performance measures address both the process of working towards the objective and the outcomes related to meeting the objective. For example… Objective: Increase district capacity to place and retain teachers with demonstrated effectiveness at improving student achievement outcomes. Performance Measures: 50 teachers will enroll in and complete the Teacher Effectiveness Modeling (TEM) program by the end of the first year of the grant. (Process Measure) Within two years of program participation, TEM teachers will increase their classroom practices scores on average by 20% more than a matched comparison group. (Outcome Measure) 75% of students served by TEM teachers, will achieve scores of proficient or higher on the state assessment within two years of program participation. (Outcome Measure) A comprehensive set of performance measures address both the process of working towards the objective and the outcomes related to meeting the objective. The measures should also be aligned with the objective. If a performance measure is not related to the objective under which it is listed, it will not be useful for measuring the processes used to reach the objective or the outcomes associated with the objective.
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Sample Management Plan
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Sample Narrative Management Plan- KIPP
KIPP’s Management Plan (See Handout) Good example of management plan for cooperative agreement All FY 2012 project directors should have received an prior to this presentation containing an attachment with an i3 Management Plan example as well as this management plan mapped to an Excel document. KIPP is an FY 2010 i3 grantee and they provided us with a good example of how the Department would like the management plans to be organized. This plan provides an introduction, or overview of the project, which includes the main objectives for the year and overall goals.
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A Closer Look Taking a closer look at this plan, the plan is organized by the project objectives, which is the what you are trying to achieve with your grant. Under the first objective the grantee intends to Deepen and expand the pipeline of effective principals. In the four supporting strategies, the grantee addresses how they will achieve the stated objective. The overview provided on page four gives sufficient detail on how the project’s specific activities will be executed and the rationale behind them. As requested in the cooperative agreement, this plan describes the responsible staff and includes a timeline of when these activities will be completed. Page 6 notes the Key Milestones, the intermediate indicators of success, as well as key risks. These indicators are necessary for the grantee and program officers to determine if the project is on track and to determine if technical assistance is needed. When constructing your revised management plans with more detail, ask yourself and address the following questions: What has to be done? Who is responsible? What is the time frame? Please provide clear start and end dates, but as stated before these are subject to change. What are the risks involved the may impede or delay project progress? How will success be measured? What are the performance measures? You should make sure that the activities support the strategy and the strategies support the overall objective. You should focus on what is feasible for year one, but also think about the overarching goals and objectives for the overall project. The level of detail presented in this example is approximately the level of detail we expect from the grantees.
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Mapping to Excel
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to the Management Plan and Excel Template
from the Application… Objective 1 Performance Measure 1 Performance Measure 2 to the Management Plan and Excel Template Objective 1 Strategy 1 Activity 1 Strategy 2 Activity 2 Performance Measure 1 Performance Measure 2 The management plan should, in essence, be an extension of the application. The same fundamental ideas, strategies, and activities proposed in the application should be explained in greater detail, and clearly outline what you intend to achieve and how you will do it. The objectives will not change and will be incorporated directly into the management plan. The strategies and activities will be explained in greater depth in the management plan. Performance measures will serve as indicators of progress. As stated in the cooperative agreement, grantees will provide a narrative management plan, and an outline of the plan in Excel, which will be used to facilitate tracking of grant accomplishments.
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Management Plan Template in Excel
Description Performance measures g Status Not begun In progress Operational Not planned Code 1.0 1.1 1.1.1 1.2 2.0 2.1 2.2 Level Objective Strategy Activity- Planning Activity- Implementation Activity- Evaluation Activity- Dissemination Activity- Milestone When working within the Excel environment, data will be organized according to: the objectives, which look at what the project is trying to achieve; the strategies, which are the practices required to move the grant forward. They are essentially the major components of the intervention; and the activities, which should drive the strategies . The activities are the day to day pieces that once completed should signal that the grant is on track to achieve stated outcomes and goals. The Excel chart is based on coding the objectives, strategies, and activities. Starting from the top left there is a column for a code. Code numbers are assigned to each level. Codes are written where level one “1.0” is an objective. The second level, the strategy level associated with that objective would be assigned the code of “1.1”. The next level down, the associated activities will be “1.1.1”, 1.1.2, 1.1.3” and so on. “2.0” would indicate a new and different objective, then you would follow the same pattern. Where the associated strategies would be “2.1”. And the associated activities would follow suit with “2.1.1” and “2.1.2” and so on. Example Excel management plans will be shared later in this presentation. The next column refers to column labeled “level,” there is a dropdown separated out into objective, strategy, then activities, which are further broken down based on the phase of the activity. Each grant should begin with a planning or design phase and allow for each subsequent phase to be built upon the progress made throughout the grant. Within each phase, grantees should highlight milestones and/or benchmarks that will serve as indicators of progress. These clearly defined measures must be monitored on an ongoing basis. This will make it easier to determine when adjustments or changes need to be made to the intervention. Please note that the milestone activity may supersede other activities or in other words, occur at any point during the project. The category description provides a brief description of the objective, strategy, or activity. The status column is another dropdown with the options of not begun, in progress, operational, and not planned. So, what is the status of the objective, the strategies, and the activities? The activities’ status should be reflected in the objective and strategy statuses. If the activities are in progress, then the strategy should also be in progress and the objective should be in progress. Note: Operational is defined as complete. Not all activities will have indicators (i.e. performance measures), but the outcomes will be what the grantee needs in order to determine if the activity or strategy has been met.
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Activities There are five activity types:
Planning/Design activities describe the steps needed to gather information, develop systems, design processes, and create products. Implementation activities describe the steps to deploy what was developed, designed, or created. Evaluation activities describe the activities associated with evaluating the implementation and impact of the project. Dissemination activities Milestone activities describe a significant point or event in the project. In the Excel version of the plan you will be asked to describe the activities that your project will engage in according to the five categories. There are five activity types. Planning/Design activities, implementation activities, evaluation activities, dissemination activities and milestone activities.
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Assigning Dates Avoid including year-long or multi-year tasks as they are more difficult to monitor Break down tasks to ensure the ability to track progress to goals and completion of activities Try to provide timelines that will allow you to monitor tasks within 3-6 month segments Year-long or multi-year timelines for tasks are more difficult to monitor, for both the program officer and the grantee. As you monitor your projects, contracts, and sub-grants please remember that tasks should not run from the beginning of the grant to the end of the grant. Breaking down tasks will enable you to track progress to goals and completion of activities. It will also allow for continuous improvement activities– this will give you time to assess the effectiveness and quality of, as well as the satisfaction with, the activity currently being implemented. We recommend that you provide first year timelines that will allow you to monitor tasks within three to six month segments.
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What to Include Grantees can provide as much detail as they wish to the extent that it is helpful to them, but Department staff DO NOT expect you to provide every minor detail. The level of detail should: Help grantees keep track of the core activities they need to execute on and minimize ongoing time spent on process Allow program officers to identify (both proactively and just- in-time) risks and provide support Enable technical assistance providers and other key stakeholders to understand what grantees are trying to do Grantees can provide as much detail as they wish to the extent that it is helpful to them. The information provided should inform the grantee and the ED program office of the core strategies and activities required to move the grant forward. It should also help to identify risks and serve as a tool to assess the types of technical assistance needed.
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Sample Project Plan- KIPP
This spreadsheet corresponds to the example narrative management plan that was discussed earlier in the presentation. You should have received this example in the sent prior to this webinar. The more organization and detail provided in the narrative management plan, the easier it will be to translate it into an Excel spreadsheet. Some grantees have found that starting with the mapping exercise in Excel may provide a clear outline of what to write in the narrative management plan. As you are working on your management plans, we would like you to participate in an exercise. We would like each grantee to send a draft of one project objective with the related strategies and activities to your program officer. Your program officer will review it and make sure that it aligns to what was proposed in the approved application, there are clear and detailed milestones, and that there are measures or indicators of quality and impact. Your program officer will provide you with feedback, so that you may continue to develop your plan for year one. Please note that year one is from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013, although if you include activities prior to this date and that go into year two that is acceptable. Please note that both a narrative and Excel management plan are due within 60 days of ED signing your cooperative agreement.
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Sample Project Plan- FY2011 Grantee
Here is an example of a management plan provided by an FY2011 i3 grantee. They have noted their objective, the strategies needed to support that objective, and the activities that need to be accomplished in order for the objective to be achieved. They have provided brief descriptions and have clear start and end dates. These dates may change, but for now, we would like to have a general idea of the start and end dates for each project . The indicators are performance measures that allow the grantee and program officers to know that an activity has been completed and are important for keeping in mind and eventually reaching the overall performance measures associated with your objectives. Please note that not all activities have indicators.
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Next Steps
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Management Plan Review Process
Grantees will send a draft of one project objective with related strategies and activities Program Officers will do a quick review for the following: Alignment between what was proposed in the application and the management plan Clear and detailed milestones/deliverables Measures or indicators of quality and impact While we have offered some preliminary guidance on how the management plans should be constructed, you will work more closely with your program officers in the coming weeks. Grantees will send a draft of one project objective in both narrative and Excel format with related strategies and activities. Program officers will provide a due date for the initial drafts. Program Officers will do a quick review for the following: Alignment between what was proposed in the application and the management plan Clear and detailed milestones/deliverables Measures or indicators of quality and impact
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Management Plan Review Process
Program Officers will provide feedback on draft plans Final versions of the management plan must be submitted within 60 days of ED signing the cooperative agreement Program Officers will provide written confirmation when your management plan is approved Program Officers will provide feedback on the draft plans. Grantees will work to develop their management plans for year one. Final versions of the narrative and Excel management plans must be submitted within 60 days of ED signing the cooperative agreement. Program Officers will provide written confirmation when your management plan is approved.
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Q&A Please use the chat feature to submit questions about the information presented today.
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