Duignan’s Fast Visual Planning FVP
Why use Fast Visual Planning?
It can speed up your planning and implementation work by at least 40% and results in more integrated, tightly aligned and transparent planning and implementation. It integrates multiple aspects of planning, strategy, outcomes, prioritization, alignment, monitoring, performance measurement, accountability, evaluation and implementation of any policy, program, strategy, organization or initiative in any sector. It can be used within traditional planning, implementation and evaluation work. But it’s equally valuable for more inclusive, recently developed approaches such as collective impact, co-design, co-development, community-led, action research, indigenous post-colonial strategy, and strategic, developmental and empowerment evaluation. In addition to its use in government, it can also add value to planning and implementation work undertaken by nonprofits, community organizations, collaborations, coalitions, joint ventures and research organizations. Private sector companies can also use it for faster, more efficient work in non-financial results measurement, integrated and triple bottom line reporting, environmental, social and governance ESG reporting, and enterprise portfolio management.
What it’s conceptual innovation?
At the conceptual level, Duignan’s Fast Visual Planning for Government has been built from the bottom up to be consistent with the principles of 'outcomes theory'. Outcomes theory is a new theory of planning, implementation, measurement, accountability and evaluation in any type of organization or initiative. It provides a robust conceptual framework for Fast Visual Planning for Government and ensures that the approach is internally consistent. Many planning systems are difficult to use because of conceptual inconsistencies. These arise when such systems do not start from a sound theoretical foundation to ensure internal consistency. Problems typically arise for such planning systems when they run up against real-world planning difficulties that planning throws up. These are things such as hard-to-measure outcomes, difficulty attributing outcomes to specific initiatives and determining who to hold to account for exactly what. Outcomes theory plays a similar role in relation to outcomes measurement and management as accounting theory plays in the case of financial measurement and management.
What’s its practical innovation?
Fast Visual Planning for Government’s practical innovation lies in its extensive use of a very specific type of visual strategy diagram (outcomes diagram, intervention logic, theory of change) that it utilises in multiple stages of the planning and implementation process. It takes to the increasing trend toward using visual representations of outcomes and strategy in all types of planning to its logical conclusion. Fast Visual Planning for Government uses a standardized form of visual diagram that can be used in all stages of the planning process. When implementing it an Outcomes Booklet is developed for any organisation, program, policy, strategy or initiative, which contains a set of strategy diagrams. Visual strategy diagrams of the outcomes and the steps that it's believed are needed to lead to their achievement are a much more transparent and analytically powerful way of doing planning work than just using traditional text-based or text-and-table based planning documents. The approach has been used in hundreds of instances with organisations and initiatives from many sectors.