CARE Uganda · CUG Design

Business Design lifecycle

Six stages, five gates, and a donor deadline that will not move. This runs the scheduling and sign-off rules from the Business Design Manual.

Deadline planner

Put in a real donor deadline and a tier. The schedule is derived backwards over the Uganda working calendar — weekends and public holidays removed — so what you get is the day the cycle has to start, and how many working days of slack are left if it does not. Nothing here is saved.

Where does the deadline put us?

Enter the donor’s date. Every other date is derived backwards from it over a working-day calendar that knows Uganda’s public holidays — nobody types a stage date, they receive one.

This bid does not fit — it is 20 working days shortFloat -20 working daysWork must start 2026-09-11Cycle needs 35 working days
  • Compressing every non-reserved segment recovers only 13 of the 20 working days needed. Closing the rest means shortening a reserved review window, which needs an explicit waiver from the tier B approver.
  • Pursue with reduced scope, so a shorter drafting window is credible.
  • Decline. The standard cycle needs 35 working days and the calendar offers 15.

The derived plan

StageSegmentStartEndDaysAccountableGate
2Qualify · Go/No-Go 2026-09-112026-09-142PPLG1
3Co-design with partner 2026-09-152026-09-2810TLG2
4Drafting · proposal and budget 2026-09-292026-10-1310TL
4Technical review · TL + DER reserved2026-10-142026-10-163DER
4Business review · PPL + DOI + BFL reserved2026-10-192026-10-213DOI
4Donor compliance check and QA checklist 2026-10-222026-10-232GRANTS
4Design approval reserved2026-10-262026-10-272CDG3
5Final clearance, packaging and submission 2026-10-282026-10-303PPLG4

Gate decisions and who signs them

GateDecision due byRequired signatures
Gate 1 · Pursue?2026-09-14PPL + CD
Gate 2 · Concept2026-09-28PPL
Gate 3 · Design approval2026-10-27PPL + CD
Gate 4 · Submit2026-10-30CD