Overview Planning

The conceptual part in which a country office can establish the expectations and scope of Field Monitoring in their context

Introduction

The purpose of the Overview Planning is to allow a country office to establish the expectations and scope of Field Monitoring – defining what information it will provide for assessing progress against CP outputs and partnerships and defining/pacing the coverage of field monitoring on a rolling basis.

This process must support COs take different approaches to planning. This means supporting a work process for CO who plan and prioritize their field monitoring visits for a few months at a time, a quarter or the year, including large-scale cross-sector coordinated planning. However, the functionalities must also allow for COs that undertake planning only on a short-term and low-scale, with individual programme managers planning independently. The module must support flexibility in the systems workflow.

Overview planning includes checklist development/adaptation, which enables country offices to work from the basis of a global model data collection checklist (see Guidance on Field Monitoring, Annex A), selecting appropriate check list items relevant to each CP output and partner/programme document; identifying data collection methods (from a defined menu of options) and defining output-specific reference standards as appropriate. This is the only process required for smaller COs taking a simple, low-scale and decentralized approach to field monitoring planning. The process of planning at any scale should be supported by easy access to basic information on the relevant CP Outputs and related partnerships, including key planning (outputs and indicators, supply plans) and implementation (latest partner reporting and action points) that is available in the system.

Requirements

ID	Requirement
1	Ability for users to easily identify and follow two different tracks through the work processes (with variations even within the more detailed planning track), accommodating COs that pursue larger-scale coordinated and cross-sector planning as well as those that take an approach of limited short-term planning for a few field monitoring site visits at a time, potentially even with reference to only one or two CP Outputs at any given time.
2	Ability to enter detailed rationale for the field monitoring plan; this will likely remain unchanged for a year or more but is editable.
3	Ability to carry out all steps of planning with reference to a ‘CP overview’ providing key data from VISION and Partnership Management Module related to selected CO Outputs including: CP Output indicators Output allocations Humanitarian marker and code Partners PD/SSFA and output/expected result as relevant Minimum required assurance activities from HACT dashboard And links to action points, partner progress and any key attachments such as supply lists from the Partnership Management Module
4	Ability to select a CP output for field monitoring from the current or previous CP, with the ability to view the relevant PDs/SSFAs to inform this decision.
5	In relation to a given CP output and related partners and PD/SSFAs for CSO partners, ability to select the location (admin 2, 3, 4 etc as defined in PDs/SSFAs or relevant to CP outputs) and related site(s)(community level; see terminology above) to be visited for field monitoring
6	When selecting sites for field monitoring, ability to view locations by admin level 2, 3, and 4, with selected sites related to the lowest level defined in PDs
7	Ability to indicate the timing of visits for each selected location and site (by month)
8	Ability to batch plan for a number of CP Outputs and related partners.
9	Ability to adjust prioritization and planning of field monitoring site visits from a cross-sector perspective by viewing all the locations proposed for site visits, and showing the CP outputs, partners relevant to that location, the number of visits by location
10	Ability to filter prioritization and planning by Business Unit, Outcome, CP Output
11	Ability to identify sites with both name and latitude/longitude coordinates to identify different naming of same sites and to allow mapping at a later stage of FM module development.
12	Ability to tailor an output-specific field monitoring checklist based on a global model checklist, selecting: which checklist items are required (Y/N) for each CP Output and related partners (and PD/SSFA if a CSO partner); adding narrative detail to make the checklist item more specific allow variations for different partners under a given CP Output; adding a URL to complement the narrative detail for each standard checklist item for each CP Output and selected partner.
13	Ability to determine if a planned checklist will cover HACT programme assurance requirements.
14	Ability to modify an existing tailored checklist periodically (e.g. after a few months)
15	Ability for headquarters to modify the global model checklist structure (i.e categories and each checklist), though this will be necessary only at a low frequency (e.g. after 2 years).
16	Ability to select the monitoring methods for the checklist item from a menu of 4, and customize at country level by entering recommended types of key informants and focus groups discussions (if applicable). The set of methods can be adjusted globally, though only at a low frequency (e.g. after 2 years).
17	Ability to enter additional issues for attention/probing in field monitoring site visits in relation to a CP output, partner or location/site
18	Ability to edit and resolve or mark inactive additional issues for attention/probing