Strategic Project Management Made Simple: Practical Tools for Leaders and Teams

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Introducing the Logical Framework

Make no little plans: they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will, themselves, not be realized. Make big plans: aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram, once recorded, will not die.

—Daniel H. Burnham, American architect and urban planner (1846-1912)

The Best Solutions Tool You’ll Ever Find

In the 1970s, I worked with an innovative management consulting firm called Practical Concepts Incorporated (PCI), whose visionary founder Leon Rosenberg first developed the Logical Framework, to help the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) more effectively plan, implement, and evaluate the thousands of projects in the U.S. government’s multi-billion dollar foreign aid program.

The LogFrame has since been widely adopted by the international donor agencies of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Denmark, and Germany. Parts of the World Bank and the United Nations. Several U.S. federal agencies (such as the Center for Disease Control) have adopted their own versions; some call it Logic Model.

My career mission is to expand the use of this methodology to corporate and technical arenas, through consulting, public seminars, and in-house workshops.

Private sector use is rapidly growing. Among our clients, Sony Electronics’ TQM Black Belts found the tool valuable for internal consulting and quality improvement projects. DirecTV used the LogFrame approach to fight identity theft and turn high profile ...