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Program Planning & Development

Plan of Work/Local Issues

County Agents are expected to develop one to three local issues after attending Foundations 2 training approximately 7-9 months after employment.  These local issues comprise what is called a Plan of Work (POW). Plans of Work are updated every two years (Jan-March), approved, then reported against starting in July.  The current POW cycle begins on odd year intervals. To initiate or revise a POW please visit Ga Counts and select the Planning tab on the left side bar.

When developing local issues for your plan of work keep in mind that first and foremost the issue needs to be identified locally with the target audiences you serve.  You may also want to consider the need for you to establish yourself as a regional expert for promotion.  You may question what all do I report against a local issue in Ga Counts?  We suggest that you only report things that are significantly tied to the issue.  There is nothing wrong in reporting daily tasks as Base Programming.  You do not want to dilute the importance of your local issue by over-reporting against it.  You can pull reports from Ga Counts in the advanced reporting tab using your local issue when the time comes for promotion to see all that you have done on that topic.  This will greatly help you in developing your curriculum vitae.

There will never be enough time to do everything you want to do.  Find time in each day to do the things that are important and make a plan to be successful. Proper planning will allow us to spend more time in quadrant two and less time putting out fires or working on things that may not have impact.

Covey Matrix

Image credit: Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Resources for Program Planning

Program Planning Week Resources

FACS Program Policies

Program Development Coordinators

Extension Training System Contacts