3 Planning a partnership

At this point you should be able to see that the Building Partnerships Map tool is useful for developing a partnership. Perhaps you might find it useful as a checklist, or to prompt discussions. What is particularly good about this tool is that it identifies stages and prompts thought and action on what may need to occur at each stage.

You may also recognise that partnerships rarely follow a straight path; this tool should therefore be used flexibly. It might be problematic to think that you cannot progress to a particular stage because you have not completed a previous stage. This rigid thinking can frustrate some stakeholders. The reality of partnerships is that these processes need to be somewhat iterative rather than entirely prescribed (Figure 3).

Figure 3: The stages of a partnership should not be too prescriptive!