Identifying obstacles and limitations

Identifying Obstacles and Limitations

After setting objectives and targets the planner should ask himself/herself about the presence of any situation (obstacle/limitation) that may prevent the achievement of each objective and target.

The Limitations/Obstacles May Be

Resources

People - lack of interest, no skilled people

Equipment - not available, expensive (even if available)

Money- no budget

Time - people may not have time

Information - hard to find, statistics not available

Environmental Obstacles

When making a plan the environment should be reviewed to see whether it presents any specific difficulties, such as: Geographical features which would be important for building roads, marketing goods, or transporting patient to hospital, for instance mountains, rivers lakes may be serious obstacle to delivering an adequate health services in some areas.

Climate

This may influence type of building and nature of health problems.

Technical Difficulties

Related to the technical development of society, for instance, an electric centrifuge is useless in a health centre where there is no electricity.

Social Factors

Which are the most serious obstacles, there may be customs or taboos that operate against the plan, people may be prejudiced against new ideas, or there may be laws or regulations (good or bad) that prevent certain activities.

In Summary in the process of identifying obstacles and limitations you should:

• Ask the question "what is or could be, preventing the achievement of the objectives?
• Review limitation of resources (people, equipment, information, money and time)
• Revise obstacles in the geographical, climatic, technical and social environment)
• Analyze obstacles-to what extent they can be removed, reduced
• Revise objective accordingly