This paper has shared a specific conceptual framework and its use in the programme planning process for a leadership institute for public health nursing in the United States of America. The context, rationale, and value premises from which the framework for planning the institute evolved have been discussed. The fact that the framework provided a necessary planning structure for the committee members to function within has been stressed. That the programme exceeded the original conceptualized outcome for the framework's use in no way diminishes the value of this planning tool. Indeed, the outcomes merely validate the principle, 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'.
