Work Plan and Budget Plan
Read this article on how to plan and present a budget. Though different grant proposals may require specific budget formats, this article gives several formatting examples.
What is a Work Plan?
A work plan, sometimes called a project plan, outlines in specific detail how a project will be conducted, who will work on which part, and when and in what order each part will be accomplished.
Work plans, often shown as Gantt charts, show all the tasks involved in a project, who is responsible for each task, and when the tasks will be completed.
What Types of a Work Plan and its Elements?
There are several types of work plans: weekly, monthly, and annual.
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A weekly work plan is a one-week work plan normally completed by a team member. It is used when small-scale activities need to be monitored closely.
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A monthly work plan is a one-month basis work plan that is normally used at a team level or a project level. A team member can do a monthly work plan, and the project coordinator or manager will consolidate all of them to form a team or a monthly work plan.
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An annual work plan is a work plan that is used at a project level or at an organizational level. At a project level, it looks at all activities and resources that a project needs for a period of one year. At an organizational level, it combines all projects and resources that the organization needs for a period of one year.
An annual work plan is a detailed plan of activities to achieve a specific set of results during a particular year. A well-prepared annual work plan provides a clear plan of action that links resources, activities, and responsibilities to results. It should identify who does what, why, when, how, where, and with what resources.
When preparing an annual work plan, it is essential to involve project management, program support, and relevant project stakeholders as you determine what needs to be implemented during the year, the time frame, and the cost involved. The work plan should indicate the principal activities that will be carried out during the fiscal year, with a timeline or schedule for execution.
In some organizations, an annual work plan includes expected results and a planned budget. It can be as complex or simple as the organization wants. The plan is created to oversee planned activities and expected results and allocate human and financial resources. These must be carried out or achieved within a limited time frame.
Whether it is a weekly, monthly, or annual work plan, an organization should have agreed on a work plan template so that all staff members can consolidate and easily understand different work plans across the organization.
Most work plans for a project include the following elements:
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A short description of the project's objective.
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A list of personnel participating in the project.
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A breakdown of the project into specific tasks, with indications of which tasks are dependent upon the completion of others.
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A schedule indicating when each task will begin, when it is completed, and who will perform it; this information may be represented as an annotated bar chart.
Benefits of a Work Plan
A work plan provides the following benefits:
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Define required resources in terms of persons and time: who are required to do the tasks or activities, how many persons or team members are needed, how much time is needed, or can be allocated.
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Define roles and responsibilities: who is doing which tasks, and therefore, they are responsible for their tasks.
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Clarify expectations: which results can be expected and from whom?
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Once started, it can be used as a monitoring tool to check whether the project is on track.
Examples of Different Work Plan Formats
We will look at various examples of different work plan formats. Firstly, however, in doing or designing a work plan, we need to:
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Use identified activities, possibly with purpose or outcome, from the Logframe to plan what will be carried out and the project's time frame.
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Using MS Excel or MS Project, arrange identified activities and the time frame in the format of a Gantt chart.
Example 1
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List main and sub-activities to be carried out and set corresponding to the time frame.
Example 1: "Improve the Quality of River Water" from the Logframe session.
Example 2
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The number of days a team member needs to complete their assigned activities is accompanied by each activity.
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Different team members can jointly implement an activity assigned to a lead person with overall responsibility.
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This annual work plan also presents the total workload of all team members in a year by listing the number of days.
Example 2: An annual work plan listing activities a team must carry out from January to December 2016 of the Capacity Development Project
Example 3
Example 3: This example presents a work plan over multiple years. Each task has an assigned person and can be tracked as not started, in progress, complete, or overdue.
What is a Budget Plan?
A budget plan is a document that outlines planned and estimated expenditures of a project for a specific period of time. In some cases, a budget plan can include money that the organization expects to generate, which is listed as "expected income." This is important for organizations that have income generation activities from providing services such as health or restaurant, or from selling handcrafts or agricultural products. In this case, the budget plan will also show how much an organization estimates to generate, and how much is needed to cover all expenses in order to carry out the planned activities within a period of time.
The budget plan is also a principal document that the project team needs to use during the project implementation phase before making actual expenditures, as they have to check whether the items were included in the budget and for which amount. A budget plan normally reflects on project activities and resources required to implement a project. A proper and well-planned budget is required to convince a project donor when you need to request their funding.
How to Develop a Budget Plan?
There are some points to consider when starting to develop a budget plan:
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It should be developed upon a certain base. Usually, the basis should be the previous year's budget plan with updated costs and items for the current year.
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It is joint teamwork. If you are a project manager, you will need to develop a budget plan at least with a financial officer who can provide you with the updated information you need and who can ensure that it also complies with internal financial policy if one exists. If your project is jointly implemented with other partners, you must develop a budget plan with their consultation.
Types of costs that can be included in a budget plan:
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Core or Administrative Costs are expenses occurring toward the organization's operational expenses, including administration staff, office rental, stationery, utilities, and other office maintenance expenses.
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Project Costs are expenses that have to be met to implement a project's activities. Examples include organizing a village meeting, conducting training or workshops, policy lobbying and meetings, radio talk shows, conducting awareness campaigns, publishing research findings, buying materials or equipment, and so on.
In case of applying for a grant from a donor, you will need to check
their budget guidelines and correctly follow their budget plan template
or format to know:
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The total amount of funding that can be asked.
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The duration of the funding: on a one-year or multiple-year basis.
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What items and costs can or cannot be included?
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The maximum percentage or ceiling amount that you can ask for administrative or core costs and project costs.
After considering the above points, to develop an actual
budget plan, it is necessary to check whether "inputs" information is included in the Logframe matrix. If it is included, it would indicate at least some main costs and their items. The activities listed in the Logframe or a work plan need to be used as items in the
budget plan.
Example 1: "Reduced infant and maternal mortality
rates" from the Logframe or work plan, the activities of which will be
used to develop a brief budget plan as in the following:
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The budget plan contains two main costs: administrative costs and project costs.
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Items: lists all items the project needs to purchase.
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The unit elaborates on the type of item, which can be a person, month, or day.
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Frequency per year: explains how often a payment must be made for an item in one year.
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Shared %: this project can ask for 20% of cost-sharing for administration while items under the project costs can be covered until up to 100%.
Example 1: Budget Plan for Reduced Infant and Maternal Mortality Rates Project
Example 2: The following example shows a brief budget plan for Capacity Development Project for 2016:
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The budget plan contains two main costs: administrative costs and project costs.
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The items lists all items on the project that must be purchased.
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The unit elaborates on the type of item, which can be a person, month, or day.
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The frequency per year explains how often a payment must be made for an item in one year.
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The shared % indicates this project has a 25% shared cost for administration while items under the project costs can be covered until up to 100%.
Example 2: Budget Plan for Capacity Development Project
Source: Center for Civil Society and Nonprofit Management
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