Changing your plan

Ask people for feedback and be responsive to what they say. Quite likely, you will find that your program will still need some in-course adjustments. Don't worry, you have probably already prevented most of the biggest mistakes if your pilot program was effective.

Whenever you consider modifying the program, you will probably face two opposite tensions. On one hand, you might want to follow the plan rigidly with very few adjustments for new factors arising. On the other hand, the temptation to adjust to all sorts of factors might lead you to simply ignore the plan and start "making it up as you go along." It's a judgement call, and both extremes are equally wrong. Part of the reason is that that the reality of what happens looks different from the plan, even when you follow the plan exactly.

Still, some things might need immediate attention for the program to survive. By regularly seeking the views of interested parties, you can use them to adjust your strategy. Remember the emergent understanding model? Expect to learn new things about your community as you go, that you couldn't have anticipated at the planning stage.

Here's something else: it's quite common for unexpected intervening factors to crop up and need your attention. For example, colleagues built a village water filter, but couldn't have anticipated that children would find it attractive as a "toy.") Don't get frustrated; facing the unexpected is actually very normal.