The planning commission’s efforts to make a more participatory plan have received wide coverage. Its work with civil society organisations; its dedicated website, backed by a Facebook page—all these have been written about. This article explains what was done and how.

In the last decade, fewer citizens, especially Gen Y, have had to remember that India still follows five-year plans. Those who do notice, dismiss these exercises as rehashes of the past, made by ever-older planners, and ever farther from what people really want.

Recognising this, the 12th plan, and before it, the approach to the 12th plan are being consciously prepared in a way that dispels these notions. The planning commission has chosen to reach out to those whom it normally doesn’t talk to, and to find out the wishes of citizens—both the elite netizens and, through civil society, the most deprived.

The objectives were clear: first, to make a useful plan, one had to understand and then factor in the expectations of citizens. Second, a good plan had to take into account India’s increasing complexity—of governance, of markets, of demography, of climate change, of the types of resources being generated, of the state of innovation, and of the rest of the world. Finally, any plan was as good as its implementation—so better implementation had to be the cornerstone of an effective plan.

However, a new way of making the nation’s plan cannot be carried out, if the organisation that makes the plan follows an old way of thinking.  Before, changing the process of planning, the planning commission realised that it had to make changes in its own thinking.

So in July 2010, the commission embarked on a new exercise. The best title to give this would be: “Redesigning the aircraft while flying”. This acknowledges that government organisations have to innovate even while doing their regular job. The commission still has annual plans and other regular tasks, but in the last ten months, substantial redesign of this aircraft has taken place. The lumbering, slow plane that was first designed in the 1950s is now on its way to becoming a sleek a 21st century jet. The rest of this article continues with this aeronautical metaphor.

On August 4, 2010, the board of directors (the members of the planning commission) and the senior management (advisers and above) of the organisation that owns the plane (the planning commission) were shown a blueprint of what the redesigned plane would look like, and a timeline to complete the design. Later that afternoon, the audience was divided into two groups. One looked at what all could be the possible items (the parts bin) that would be used in the redesign—engines, fuselage, wiring, instrumentation, etc.; the other looked at how to make sure that the process of redesign was inclusive and realistic.

On August 6, the board of directors were presented a final plan, based on the August 4 meetings. After which, the design team finalised the parts bin with a total of 340 possible parts (the matrix) that could be used, especially for the airframe and fuselage.  It was also decided that all officers of the planning commission would be involved in this first part of the design.

[This matrix of 340 cells comprised 34 normal parameters of any plan: agriculture, industry, rural, urban, social justice, healthcare, infrastructure, etc. These were the rows.  The columns were ten variables that could impact each of these rows. These were: citizens’ expectations; governance and institutions; markets; global developments; demography and skills; land, climate, and environment; information; science and technology; innovation and enterprise; and financing the plan. Each of the 180-odd officers of the commission was assigned to work on up to two cells in the matrix.]

Making an unscheduled halt at its base, all the employees of the organisation that owned the plane were explained on August 18 and 19 how the board of directors had planned to go about redesigning the plane and what would their role be. Their questions and fears were allayed (two meetings of all the officers in the commission).

To get the best possible design, and to involve everyone in the design, all the employees of the organisation were divided into ten teams (the column teams coming from the matrix) headed by one of the directors (members). The teams were given 34 parts from the parts bin.  Each member of the team was told to look at two parts and to see how these two parts best fitted with other parts.  Each team was asked to prepare its own design; they were given till October 15 to complete it.

An IT company was asked to prepare a project management software (Excel and then MS project) to keep track of all these ten designs. However, this software had to be retrofitted into the cockpit of the existing plane (using the existing NIC system). A rookie pilot (an intern) and a flight purser were also taken onboard and together charged with handling the software and keeping things on track (the project management cell, which was created to coordinate all these activities).

Work then started on designing the engines of the plane. The existing single propeller engine did not give the plane the ability to fly into the hearts of citizens across each part of the country. It could only take the plane to short trips around the national capital and perhaps some of the state capitals (most readers of the previous approach papers would have been part of the Delhi commentariat).

It was decided that there would be two jet engines: one co-designed by civil society organisations; the other by citizens directly through an online tool. On October 1, representatives of civil society were invited to join the designing of one of the engines of the plane.

Once the ten teams completed their preparations, the plane was flown to another slightly out-of-the way and more picturesque airfield for three days, October 23 to 25 (a retreat for all staff at the Agricultural Research Institute in Pusa, Delhi).  In that place, the ten teams working in parallel completed their designs. Each team then submitted four items that they felt could be the best parts to be used in the redesigned plane.

These 40 parts were then put into a wind-tunnel (voting by all officials present at the retreat) to test their aerodynamic stability.  At the end of the wind-tunnel test, six parts were finalised to go into the airframe and fuselage.

However, the board of the directors felt that using only six parts (the system challenges) would make the plane only a passenger plane. They added six more parts (the sectoral challenges) to make a “stretch” fuselage that could carry both passengers and cargo (state governments) and fly not just to big cities but also to all state capitals through a point-to-point service. These 12 parts became the 12 challenges on which the rest of the plane’s design was based.

[The six systemic challenges were: enhancing the capacity for growth; enhancing skills and faster generation of employment; managing the environment; markets for efficiency and inclusion; decentralisation, empowerment, and information; and technology and innovation. These systemic challenges can be linked to all the issues that are part of a plan. In addition, six sectors were identified as critical: securing the energy future for India; accelerated development of transport infrastructure; rural transformation and sustained growth of agriculture; managing urbanisation; improved access to quality education; and better curative and preventive healthcare.]

The next day, civil society organisations, under the banner of the Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, came together with the planning commission to co-create the process of designing the first jet engine.  It was decided that to make the best possible engine, our co-creators would work with 14 teams (representing as many disadvantaged groups) who would collectively explore how the engine could have the power to reach to 14 points of the compass (be meaningful to the most deprived, represented by these groups). These 14 teams were told to work on their own and then come back with their ideas. To help them meet the specifications and requirements of the new fuselage and airframe, one of the directors of the organisation decided to attend meetings of each of these teams. However, it was made clear that whatever design these groups gave, they had to conform to the requirement of lifting this 12-part fuselage (comments around 12 challenges).  The first engine’s design was completed by the civil society groups and sent by December 30.

Along the way, in-flight magazines were prepared and periodically distributed to all in-flight designers (weekly newsletters to the staff of the commission), giving everybody an update on where we were. This was done by the flight purser and his team (the project management cell).

For some of the instruments in the cockpit that controlled some of the parts of the airplane (challenges like decentralisation, employment, and health), the designers asked for help from experts across the country (Solution Exchange of the United Nations).  Within three weeks, we got useful ideas on how to redesign these instruments.

At the same time, the commission decided to complete the design of the fuselage.  Since, this would now comprise 12 parts, 12 new teams (the challenge teams) were created, each to work on one part of the fuselage. The teams were given one and a half months to prepare their detailed design. Two in-flight announcements were made on December 29 and December 30 (meetings with the challenge teams) to the members of the 12 teams explaining what they were supposed to do. Again, to ensure that these designs were in line with the originally approved blueprint, and to ensure that they fitted will with each other, two members of the board of directors took simultaneous charge of each team. The team was asked to specifically consider the points raised by the designers of the first engine.

With a new team of flight pursers and flight attendants (new interns to staff the PMC), the designers started work on the second engine. A dedicated website (www.12thplan.gov.in) backed by a companion page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/twelfthplan) was launched on February 3. To make this engine achieve its objectives, specific questions were asked of its co-designers—all netizens, across the world. Answers to those questions would help frame the design of the 12 parts. What was found, though, was that the designers of the second engine made an engine that focused on only two issues (corruption, implementation), which were not part of the design brief to make an engine that supported the 12-part fuselage.

Along the way, we realised that these two engines would be strong, but the wings that they rode on, and which were part of the plane also needed redesign. A balance was needed between the power of the two engines and the requirements of the passengers (government agencies) and others who would be impacted (businesses, etc) by the plane’s flights.

So, one meeting was called with expert users on February 9 (think tanks of the country) to update them on the new plane that was soon going to start flying the friendly skies.  But, more importantly, multi-stakeholder meetings were called bringing together engine designers, passengers, crew, and others to discuss what should be the two or three key success factors for the redesigned plane. This was also done to reconcile the two engines that had resulted in different designs. These meetings on March 12, 14, and 15, and April 1 (called ‘consensus conclaves’) revalidated that the two key issues of corruption and implementation were as important as the 12-part fuselage that was originally planned.

These two new concerns—the outcome of this redesign—will become the two tail-wings of the plane, which provide it lift, and without which the plane cannot really fly.

A blueprint of this new design was shown before the CEO and the top management (the full planning commission, comprising the prime minister and other senior cabinet ministers) on April 21. They agreed with the design, especially with the focus on implementation and service delivery, which was what citizens had asked for, and what the new design has bought focus to.

Along the way, passengers (union ministries) and cargo customers (state governments) were asked to suggest how they would like to design their respective parts of the plane—the chairs and the cargo hold. While the passengers gave a sketchy design of how the chairs should look (a reference to the 12 challenges is in each GOI department’s strategic plan, part of their results framework document), the cargo consigners needed additional ideas. To get this set of valuable customers to also join in the design of the new plane, the board of directors will fly this plane in May and June to select locations (five state capitals) where the heads of each of the big customers will be asked to give their preferences on how the design should be done (regional meetings with chief ministers).

[These onsite meetings will also be different. In addition to regular interactions with government officials, there will also be separate meetings with PRIs, with CSOs, and with businesses, unions and academia to get the views of different stakeholders in the region.]

In the era of transparency, the various blueprints submitted by different designers: civil society, Solution Exchange, CII, FICCI, and NASSCOM were hosted on the website, so that all could see if the redesign was proceeding as they had wished, and so that different agencies could see what designs other agencies were giving. The media also gave wide publicity to this process. The presentation to the prime minister is also on the website, so is our analysis of the different designs, that specifically looks at what were the common elements (called Listening to India, again on our website).

Now the plane’s skeleton, its engines, and its wiring is almost ready. All it needs is the skin to be welded on (the content of the chapters), and it will be ready to make its first test flight (the first draft) sometime in June.

A fully loaded plane, with passengers and cargo, will be tested before all users in July (the national development council of the PM, all Ministers, and all CMs).  After it clears that test, this new plane will be ready for commercial operations. It will be used to carry passengers and cargo over a new route (the 12th plan) that connects today (2011) with a better tomorrow (2017). It is also hoped that the process of redesigning this aircraft can also be a template for other, state-level agencies to redesign their own planning processes to meet the requirements of their states.

The redesigning of the plane has had many iterations: a 340-cell matrix; six challenges; 12 challenges; and finally, one imperative—implementation, which was what we hope will make the new plane, and the new plan, more effective.