The scheduling of the work plan, therefore, should be such that ample time is allowed for all materials to arrive at their respective destinations in time. Certain decisions, such as training of key office personnel and purchase of computers should be taken at a very early stage. For example, a delay in the arrival of training materials at training centres would mean re-assembling hundreds of census field workers for training. For large operations like censuses, PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) provides a systematic approach for realistic planning in line with target dates, indicating crucial tasks and contemplating alternative courses of action to be taken and highlighting inter-related resources and activities. For this purpose, a network analysis can be useful.
The pilot census (see Chapter 13), carried out under conditions closely resembling the actual census, may also provide good estimates of time and resource requirements.ģ.4 The importance of a well-thought out work plan should not be underestimated.
BUDGET PLANNING QUESTIONNAIRE SOFTWARE
There are now several software packages available to assist in project planning and monitoring.ģ.3 The assessment of the length of each activity must rely on realistic information from previous similar operations. In this case, the census coordinator must ensure the necessary consistency of these work plans.
Some information may be added to indicate possible flexibility of the relation a well-prepared work plan should show, for instance, that enumeration cannot start before questionnaires are available.ģ.2 Given the great number of specific activities, it is often more practical to break down the general work plan into several broad subject matter areas or phases thus, one can prepare a field enumeration work plan, a training work plan, a data processing work plan, etc. The comparison between bars demonstrates obvious relations between activities in time. Each row refers to a key activity with a bar showing when it is active. Time is usually shown in weeks, months or quarters on the horizontal axes. Time is an essential dimension that should never be forgotten and even for a small census, at least two years is required from the initial preparatory work to the dissemination of the census results.ģ.1 The work plan is usually presented as a chart (see example in Table 3.1) identifying all the key activities of the census in a time frame (preparation, field work,etc.) and showing the relationship between them. It should be known, especially by producers and users of data, that an agricultural census cannot be accomplished in a short time. Also, very important, is an awareness of the time and resource requirements for this operation. Inadequate planning and/or underestimating the financial requirements are the basic reasons in many countries for serious problems in census operations. The reader's attention is drawn to the importance of the recommendations in this chapter and particularly to those referring to the need for realistic estimates when preparing the budget.
0 kommentar(er)
