You've worked hard to create a dynamite strategic plan. You even developed a communication strategy to ensure your entire organization knows the plan and their part in its success. Now you can relax, right? Not so fast! Unfortunately, it's all too common for organizations to write a dynamite strategic plan and then let it fall by the wayside as day-to-day events act to shift focus. Don't let that happen! The last step in the planning process is tracking, assessment and follow-up.
Many leaders get sidetracked by everyday challenges. A leader must handle the multiple issues that arise, while always keeping the plan in mind. If you have developed an effective strategic plan, you will be able to focus the majority of your, and more importantly your subordinates, day-to-day activities. Don't let the everyday activities in your organization's life bury the plan. After you've successfully communicated your strategic plan to the organization, you need action plans for the goals, a method of tracking goals and assessing success, and you'll need to constantly follow-up.
The Action Plan
Your strategic plan contains your goals. Each goal must have an action plan. The goal objectives are the first part of that plan, but it needs to go beyond that. Though the action plans are specific to the goals, I offer the following general suggestions:
1. Assign a champion to each goal and make them responsible for the action plan.
2. Don't make the action plan overly elaborate. Simple is usually better. Don't fall into the trap of spending a great amount of time creating and perfecting the action plan and never accomplishing the goal. That isn't to say the plan should not be sufficiently detailed. For instance, if the goal is "decrease order and ship time by 10%", and the objectives are "create an improved pick system and streamline the packaging process," you will obviously need to do some quantitative study to determine the process flow, queue time, etc.
Many leaders get sidetracked by everyday challenges. A leader must handle the multiple issues that arise, while always keeping the plan in mind. If you have developed an effective strategic plan, you will be able to focus the majority of your, and more importantly your subordinates, day-to-day activities. Don't let the everyday activities in your organization's life bury the plan. After you've successfully communicated your strategic plan to the organization, you need action plans for the goals, a method of tracking goals and assessing success, and you'll need to constantly follow-up.
The Action Plan
Your strategic plan contains your goals. Each goal must have an action plan. The goal objectives are the first part of that plan, but it needs to go beyond that. Though the action plans are specific to the goals, I offer the following general suggestions:
1. Assign a champion to each goal and make them responsible for the action plan.
2. Don't make the action plan overly elaborate. Simple is usually better. Don't fall into the trap of spending a great amount of time creating and perfecting the action plan and never accomplishing the goal. That isn't to say the plan should not be sufficiently detailed. For instance, if the goal is "decrease order and ship time by 10%", and the objectives are "create an improved pick system and streamline the packaging process," you will obviously need to do some quantitative study to determine the process flow, queue time, etc.
3. The action plan should be in writing and approved by the senior leader. This helps maintain continuity as you progress toward completion of the goal. It's also extremely helpful in cases of long-term projects where the champion may change.
While writing action plans, your goal champions may discover that some of the objectives are not quite right, or that a critical objective is missing. That's to be expected as they are digging deeper into the issue than the leadership team did. Don't let that stop the process of creating the action plan! Have the champions continue on and present the changes at the next leadership team review.
Tracking the Goals and Assessing Progress
The leadership team must be able to track goal progress. The method of tracking is best left to the individual organization but the following guidelines will help ensure a smooth tracking process:
1. Within a week, reconvene the leadership team to review the goal dates and champions. By this time, the goal champions should know if the original completion date is realistic.
2. Within no more than three weeks from completion of your strategic plan, meet with your goal champions. Have them present their action plans for each goal and corresponding objective. The plan must include the method of assessing progress and success. Keep this as simple as possible. Complicated statistics are often unnecessary.
3. Pick a time, at least monthly, for progress updates. Keep a written record of these updates. Adjust the completion date only after serious discussion with the champion. Satisfy yourself that the change is completely justified. When changes are made, annotate them on all copies of the plan. You may want to include a short statement explaining the change.
Follow-Up
A good strategic plan has a life of one year or less. You will need to reconvene your leadership team for another planning session in a year. If this was the first plan for a new organization or an organization faced with severe, immediate problems, the next planning session may need to be in six months, but this isn't a hard and fast rule. If the organization is having great success realizing its goals, meet earlier. You don't want to lose the momentum.
From the moment you complete the strategic plan, be thinking about the next one. Keep notes of how you implemented the plan and what went right and wrong. I guarantee you won't get it 100% right the first time... or the second, or third, or fourth time. This is a continuous improvement opportunity!
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