Questions and Answers
How can we get better action plans?
Keep in mind what an Action Plan is designed to accomplish. It is basically a project management tool. As such, it is imperative that all steps in the Action Plan be both clear and actionable. In addition, you should recognize that the Action Plans do not exist in a vacuum. They are designed to be used as part of the Monthly Monitoring Process. To be effective they need to have a sufficient number of steps, scheduled such that they allow evaluation in that time frame. For example, an Action Plan that has several steps with a six month interval between start and completion dates would be much less effective as a monitoring tool than if some of those steps were further broken down into activities that had completion dates in most of the months. Another common mistake is not looking ahead on Action Plans. In any particular month, the Action Plan Team should not only focus on the items due for completion that month, but should also be looking ahead to items scheduled for completion during the next month. Doing so will allow for scheduling of meetings or other required resource commitments well in advance. Finally, the scheduling of start and completion dates should never be done arbitrarily. You should have a clear grasp of resource requirements and availability based on our time planning techniques.
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Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.
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Ann Arbor, MI 48108
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