Management vs Administration

Management and Administration can be confused sometime. As an administrator these will help you know your basic Job description. If you are : Setting organizational objectives based on available resources Formulating plans and policies for the achievement of the set objectives Defining and Forecasting especially for human and material resources in form of budget. Initiate work activities and defining specific tasks to be performed to achieve objectives Setting up controls and standard of measurement to evaluate human activities leading to achievement of the objective Coordinating and integrating peoples effort and material resources to accomplish set objectives Providing necessary structure and procedure to enhance people's action and activities Defining the type of leadership and authority necessary to accomplish the objective Providing solutions to remedial actions to be taken if objective are yet to be met Providing incentives, motivations and encouragement for better performance If you do all the above then your are involved in Management and not administration. You are a part of the management Management set the vision, mission statement. It is broader in nature.

If you are: Implementing plans, policies, programs after formulation Using scarce resources available to achieve the stated goals Coordinating human efforts and material resources to accomplish educational goals Describing the specific duties and responsibilities to be performed by different officers Training staff for effective performance on the job Establishing policies and procedures, rules and regulations guiding organizational behaviour Solving problems and complaints that may inhibit process of achieving the stated objectives Supervising and evaluating activities based on standard measurement Communicating and set objectives and work activities required fir achieving the goals Promoting and rewarding good performance amongst staff.

Then, you are administering, you are an administrator. Administration set out smaller goals to carry out mission statement Management cannot survive without administration. Both are inseparable. Well, If can do administration perfectly well, you can become a part of the management someday.

6 Things with Planning

Planning is any essential element in any successful organization no matter the size of the organization.

For every plan to be successful make it go through these 6 stages in your school.

Pre- planning : This is preparing to plan, as funny as it sounds it involves looking into what will be needed for the planning process and making them available.
A condusive environment, what do we what to plan
Adjustment of resources and machinery necessary. All that is needed to plan materials and structures so as to have a feasible plan
Outline the planning procedure. How to get the resources. When to get the resources needed for this our plan.
Set up procedures for collection and analysis of information / data for every stage of planning

Planning: This is the actual planning, it includes diagnosing the project- What we want to  achieve at the end of the planning,
formulating Policies - these are the rules & guidelines to help us achieve this plan (it must be written out & made public).
establishing priorities - now which activity should come up first and which is next in a very rational manner.

carrying out feasibility studies - this is what to sell? how to sell? who to sell to? who to sell it? how much? what is the competition like? location of target market? how do we manipulate demand?

costing of the project - after doing all the above things, how much does each cost us,considering other necessary things that is peculiar to your plan, then we put all the cost together, it becomes the total cost of the plan.

Plan Formulation: This is presenting a set of decisions we intend taking as regards our proposed plan in form of a proposal to the appropriate authorities and to provide a line of action to bring the plan into implementation.
It consists of
What is proposed?
Why is it proposed?
How to implement what is proposed? This is taking actions to implement, bring to reality what is planned.

Plan Elaboration:  After the approval of the plan. This is not implementation straight away but involves dividing the plan into specific and achievable duration of time. It involves dividing our plans into what we can achieve if all resources are available and all hands are on deck- dally, weekly, monthly, bimonthly, etc dependent of the size of the plan.

It is more or less like building a house for example we want to roof the duplex- how many carpenters do we need, how  many days will it take, how many how per day will be on roofing the building, etc

For a school, what to we want to achieve a smaller objective that is apart of the big objective, how many staff do we need, like our many days should this take, how many hours in a day should we allot to this, closing time, evaluation time of the day, salary/ wage structures, what we we have left after all this?

At the end of the day we know how long  in reality it will take us to achieve this plan


Plan Implementation: This is the core stage , because if all other process have been consider. If this is left undone it is all NOTHING. Here our  plan is been executed. All little efforts here now becomes very visible, the running of a para-organization has started. Structures are used to carry out tasks, administration of activities is very visible, keeping of records now is very visible.


Evaluation of plan: So now that we have started we need to keep a check on ourselves and the project. This can be done weekly or monthly.
What have we done so far?
Is this want we intend to achieve?
What is it that needs to be corrected?
What has been effective?
What has not been effective?
What challenges have we experienced so far?
How can we tackle them quickly?
Do we need re-oreintation?

Celebrate, Inspire and motivate your team with every little success made, it renews the energy

Effective and efficient planning isn't a day job

Team work keeps plans alive

Good planning = Good projects