Thanks Apple! A (very) first draft of a strategic plan for 2 years in Khachmaz

I'm not much of a day-planner, but I am most certainly a quarter, year, or even longer planner. It was at Apple where I learned to effectively strategic plan and do long term goal setting and I have frequently made use of this skill in my professional and personal life. As I prepare to go into Khachmaz as a community development worker (for isn't that what we all are?) I thought it made sense to arm myself with a loose strategy of what I hope to accomplish in the next two years.

Consistently Peace Corps has discouraged us from thinking of huge projects or specific activities that we want to start, they reinforce the idea that we should seek community inspired projects with support from our actual site. We've also heard consistently from PC Volunteers that many the official PC 'expectations' are not grounded in reality and can quickly go out the window as one actually begins work.

Thus, my plan is set up to have few specifics, but rather themes that I plan on focusing on. For example, instead of demanding lesson plans for each class, I am focusing on a specific aspect of lesson planning as we were taught each 6 months, with the hope that I can teach the methodology as opposed to the specific product. Focus on the benefit of a 'motivation' step instead of on the specific 'lesson plan' product. This way I can develop skills that an be applied over a range of items rather than the ability to achieve a specific task. I believe this will be more sustainable in the long run, which is PC's largest goal anyway.

This is a draft. Some boxes aren't filled in yet, and this will evolve in the next month as I get to my site and conduct my observations. As I edit this, I'm sure I'll find that some of the results are actually indicators and vice-versa. I readily appreciate comments and questions. I believe that strategic planning is an effective exercise to help sort one's thoughts and give a starting point, whether required or not. This was not required by PC but will help me greatly as ensuring that I am not getting lost in the minutiae of today and focus on the success of completed service. I think it provides a good example of a long term strategic plan with lots of variables and few knowns, which is how most long term strategic plans are.

Click here to view