A Group Process Model for Problem Identification and Program Planning

This article sets forth a group process approach useful for practicing administrators charged with a program development task. More specifically, meeting formats are suggested for involving the following critical reference groups in successive phases of program development: (1) clients (consumers or users) and first-line staff, in problem exploration; (2) external resource people and internal specialists, in knowledge exploration; (3) key administrators and resource controllers, in priority development and local adaptation; (4) organizational staff, in program proposal building; and (5) all constituencies, in final approval and evaluation designs. The meeting formats were suggested by contemporary small-group theory; the sequencing of the involvement of reference groups came from studies of community planning.