The Logic & Action Plan

The Logic & Action Plan illustrates the link between the factors that could impact the partnership’s ability to achieve an outcome and the actions it is taking to manage them. It also articulates what the partnership expects to achieve by taking those actions.

About the Logic & Action Plan

The Logic & Action Plan is made up of seven parts that reflect the adaptive management process and build upon each other. These seven parts describe how the workgroup is adaptively managing to achieve its outcome and inform its overall management strategy. Each part is described below and represented by its own column:

  1. Factors
  2. Efforts
  3. Gaps
  4. Actions
  5. Metrics
  6. Expected response and application
  7. Lessons learned

How to Complete the Logic & Action Plan

To create or update a Logic & Action Plan, workgroups and GITs should follow the steps below. If a new plan is needed, fill out the first six columns of the Logic & Action Plan template.

Column 1: Factors

List the significant human or natural factors that could impact the Chesapeake Bay Program’s ability to achieve an outcome. Both positive and negative factors—whether they can be managed or not—should be included and should be consistent with the factors identified in your Management Strategy.

Common factors include:

  • Engagement
  • Partner coordination
  • Use conflict
  • Population growth
  • Scientific and technical understanding
  • Flora and fauna
  • Habitat condition
  • Climate change
  • Funding or financial resources

When to fill out: This column should only be updated, if needed, after your Quarterly Progress Meeting. These updates should be guided by your responses to questions one through three in your Narrative Analysis.

Column 2: Efforts

List the current efforts that are supporting the Bay Program’s work to manage the factors identified in Column 1.

These efforts could come from within or outside of the Bay Program and could be deliberately or unintentionally supporting the partnership’s work. For example, if public engagement is a factor that could impact the Bay Program’s work toward an outcome, this outcome’s lead workgroup or GIT may decide to record ongoing efforts by the partnership’s Communications Office to engage this audience around an issue important to this outcome. If legislative engagement is a factor, a workgroup or GIT may decide to list ongoing efforts by advocacy organizations to influence federal, state or local policy.

When to fill out: This column should only be updated, if needed, after your Quarterly Progress Meeting. These updates should be guided by your responses to questions one through three in your Narrative Analysis.

Column 3: Gaps

List the gaps that remain despite current efforts to manage the factors identified in Column 1.

Describe efforts that, if achieved, would manage each of the listed factors. After reviewing your existing Management Strategy, add any new unfilled gaps and remove any previous gaps that have been filled.

When to fill out: This column should only be updated, if needed, after your Quarterly Progress Meeting. These updates should be guided by your responses to questions one through three in your Narrative Analysis.

Column 4: Actions

List the essential actions that will be taken to fill the gaps over the next two years.

These short-term actions should support the long-term management approaches identified in your Management Strategy. If changes in your understanding or partnership progress has led to changes in any of your management approaches, your new actions should reflect those changes. These new actions (or carry-over actions from your previous two-year work plan) could be led by a team within the Bay Program or by a partner.

When to fill out: Three months before your Quarterly Progress Meeting, review your existing actions and highlight each action as green, yellow or red as described above in the Three Months Before section. This will be your pre-Quarterly Progress Meeting Logic & Action Plan. This column is updated with new actions after your Quarterly Progress Meeting and saved as the post-Quarterly Progress Meeting Logic & Action Plan.

Column 5: Metrics

List the metrics that will be used to determine whether the actions in Column 4 have addressed all or a portion of the gaps in Column 3.

Describe the information you will use to assess the effectiveness of your new and ongoing actions in filling management gaps.

When to fill out: This column should be completed after your Quarterly Progress Meeting.

Column 6: Expected Response and Application

Describe the expected response and application of the actions in Column 5.

How do you expect your planned management actions to fill the identified gaps? Include the timing, magnitude and application of any expected changes and indicate how these changes could influence the Chesapeake Bay Program’s work.

When to fill out: This column should be completed after your Quarterly Progress Meeting.

Column 7: Lessons Learned

Describe the lessons learned following the implementation of a management action.

What have you learned from taking an action? How has that lesson led to adaptation or change? How will it impact your management approaches or actions in the next two-year cycle?

When to fill out: This column will be completed in preparation for your Quarterly Progress Meeting as part of your pre-Quarterly Progress Meeting Logic & Action Plan. At that time, you will describe what you learned from taking the actions in column four and comparing the results to the content in Columns 5 and 6.

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