ABCD-Training-of-Trainers-Tools-July-2013

2.11. Action Planning
(Source: the Coady Institute)
Session Title
Session Objectives
Action Planning
Show how the previous tools can be used to stimulate activities that
make full use of assets and opportunities
Duration of Session
Resources
Training Materials
Learn how to link identified assets and opportunities to new
opportunities
60 minutes
Flipchart
Markers
All maps done previously: Individual skills, associations, natural and
physical resources, institutions, Leaky Bucket
None
Introduction
The final—and perhaps the most important—stage of the ABCD process is the translation of local assets
into action. After all, this is the whole point of mapping assets in the first place. Explain that in this
session, the group will try to bring all of these new ideas and skills together (as discussed in the tools
above) into an action plan that participants can undertake using their own resources.After revisiting
their asset maps, the group envisions a desired change (such as potable water, improved land, or small
enterprise development) and devises an action plan to achieve it.
Group Discussion: Linking, Mobilizing, and Organizing for Immediate Action
If you are following the ABCD methodology from start to finish as laid out in this manual, this could be
the same group of three that undertook appreciative interviews, and mapping of individual skills,
associations, physical, natural and financial resources (as described above), and you could use the
community where the story took place as the demonstration site for this exercise, asking probing
questions of the person who lives or lived in this community. If you are not following the ABCD
methodology from start to finish, these groups can be formed randomly and an action plan can be
created of one of the participants’ communities. (They can decide which one).
However, it should be noted that creating an action plan before you have mapped assets may not be
beneficial because participants will not have an inventory of local assets that can be put to use and
participants tend to identify activities that rely on outside assistance. Facilitators often find that
focusing on mapping assets before articulating ideas for action leads to the emergence of new and more
innovative ideas compared to more traditional needs-based or problem-solving approaches where
visioning takes place at the beginning.
Action Planning can range from a simple exercise to a one day event (“What do we need to do to repair
the Church roof?”) to a more detailed activity (“What do we have to do to restore forest cover over the
hillside in ten years’ time?”). In both cases, decisions have to be made about: What? Why? Who? How?
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