Accountability: (in management science) The responsibility of an organization to provide evidence that its policies, programs, and projects satisfy its interest groups.
Action team: (in planning) A group of people who are responsible for implementing a specific improvement goal.
Administrative culture: The prevailing attitudes, values, beliefs, and rules for acting within an organization.
Benefit-cost analysis: Relationship of projected outcomes to projected costs, with both outcomes and costs expressed in monetary terms.
Bottom-up process: (in planning) To transmit ideas and recommendations from the bottom of an organization to its higher levels
Brainstorming: A structured method to address problems by asking people to rapidly propose ideas, while the group temporarily withholds its comments and criticisms.
Cause-and-effect analysis: (in planning) A method to help a group examine underlying explanations (causes) for what they observe (effects).
Capacity building: (in relation to development planning) The process of improving organizations, human resources, and legal and regulatory frameworks.
Consensus: A feeling within a group that its conclusion represents a fair summary of the conclusions reached by the individual members of the group. Each individual accepts the group's conclusion on the basis of logic and feasibility.
Continuous improvement: To raise the performance of an organization through a never-ending process of choosing and adjusting missions, goals, objectives, and action strategies.
Critical path method: (in planning and programming) A method of scheduling to show a logical and efficient order of activities and events.
Decentralization: The distribution of decisionmaking and operations to lower levels of government (and sometimes to non-governmental organizations).
Delegation: The transfer of planning and management functions to organizations which are funded by a central government, but which do not come under its operational control.
Delivery system: (in management science) Organizational arrangements to provide program services to the interest groups (activities, information, materials, physical outputs, etc.).
Delphi: (in forecasting the future) A method of obtaining forecasts from a panel of experts.
Distributional effects: The ways in which your policies, programs, and projects redistribute resources (and benefits and costs) in the general population.
Efficiency evaluations: (in management science) Analyses of the costs (inputs) of programs in relation to their benefits or effectiveness (outputs).
Empowerment: To transfer authority and resources to enable a person or organization to obtain a greater amount of autonomy and control.
Environmental impact assessment: Analysis of how a particular policy, program, or project may affect water, soils, flora, fauna, and human health and well-being.
Ex ante analysis: (e.g., in impact assessment) An examination of likely or probable effects prior to implementation of a policy, program, or project.
Ex post analysis: (e.g., in impact assessment) An examination that looks back in time to see what happened. While ex ante analysis is anticipatory, ex post analysis is historical.
Externalities: (in management science) Effects of a policy, program, or project that impose costs on (or give benefits to) people who are not in the target population.
Facilitator: (in planning teams) A group member whose role is to help the group function more effectively.
Feedback: (in management science) The information that returns to your organization about the consequences of your interventions. The feedback is available for "learning" so that behavior and decisions can be corrected to favor positive outcomes. See monitoring.
Force field analysis: A method of identifying favorable and hindering factors relative to achieving a particular goal.
Forecasting: (in planning) Views on what will happen in an "unknown" future.
Goals: (in planning) The particular results that an organization strives to produce in carrying out its mission.
Impact: The net effects of a policy, program, or project. See impact assessment.
Impact assessment: (in management science) Evaluation of the extent to which a policy, program, or project causes changes (e.g., economic, social, environmental) for a target population.
Inputs (in planning): The information, budget, personnel time, and other resources that go into and support a planning process.
Institutional development: To improve the laws, regulations, and human resources affecting one or more organizations (see capacity building).
Interest groups: (in relation to forests) Persons and groups who claim rights and interests in the ways that forests are protected and managed, now and in the future.
Intervention: (in management science) A planned effort to produce favorable changes in a target population.
Key result areas: (in planning) The tasks and activities that are most important in determining if an organization or individual will be successful (e.g., in achieving a goal).
Leadership: Guidance of a group of people to accomplish one or more goals.
Milestone: (in planning) The completion of an important event or activity in a longer sequence of events and activities (i.e., a measure of progress).
Mission: (in planning) The broad general purposes for which an organization exists.
Model (in planning) A simplified physical, conceptual, or mathematical abstraction of the real world to help understand relationships (such as cause and effect).
Monitoring: Assessing the extent to which a policy, program, or project is implemented in ways that are consistent with its intention.
Needs assessment: Systematic appraisal of the type, depth, and scope of a problem.
NGOs: Non-governmental organizations such as rural development societies, private businesses, workers groups, cooperatives, social and religious organizations, tribal associations, environmental organizations, and other collective units that are not controlled by a sovereign State.
Objectives: (in planning) Details about goals in terms of what, how much, when, and by whom an action is to be accomplished.
Opportunity cost: If you are following Plan A, then you give up the opportunity of alternative Plans B, C, etc. The value of what you give up (i.e., sacrifice or forego) is the opportunity cost.
Outputs: (in planning) The products that emerge from a planning process in terms of information, actions, and other results.
Ownership: (in planning) To agree with and accept a plan, especially because of having contributed to its formulation.
Pareto principle: The concept that most of a given set of results are due to a small number of causal factors (e.g., 80 percent of the results can be explained by 20 percent of the causes).
Participatory planning: To invite people to express their beliefs, preferences, and recommendations during the course of a planning exercise, especially when the participation extends to people outside the organization that does the planning.
Performance indicator: (in planning) The measurement or other type of evidence that shows whether or not a goal is being achieved.
Planning: The process of looking into the future and defining strategies (actions, interventions) to achieve goals.
Population at need: The elements of the population who have or will develop a particular need, want, or risk.
Role playing: Individuals (e.g., in a planning team) are assigned to act out opinions and behavior in a given situation. This builds understanding of different perspectives, and helps the "players" anticipate real-world interactions.
Root cause: The underlying reason for a symptom, problem, or result.
Scenario: An account or story about what may happen (actions) in a particular set of circumstances (possible environment).
Social impact assessment: Analysis of how different elements of a population gain or lose because of a policy, program, or project. Social impact assessment pays particular attention to the interests of the poor, ethnic minorities, and women.
Social indicator: Measurement of a particular indicator of social welfare in order to track the course of a social issue or problem through time.
Steering committee: A group of advisors who provide information and advice at an executive level.
Strategy: (in planning) A broad course of action, chosen from among alternatives, to attempt to achieve a stated goal.
Survey: Systematic collection of information about a defined population, often by means of interviews of a subsample of the population.
Target population: The persons, households, organizations, and communities to be reached with your interventions (policies, programs, projects).
Team: A group of people working together for a common purpose, e.g., a planning team.
Top-down process: (in planning) To transmit decisions and controls from the high levels of an organization to its lower levels.
Transfer of functions: The handover of some planning and management powers from governments to non-governmental organizations.
Uncertainty: (in planning) The lack of confidence associated with a particular set of predictions or forecasts about the future.
