Are You Ready For Action?
In the last of the series on creating your strategic plan, we are going to look at how we turn our strategies into prioritised and powerful action plans. Once we have decided on and set our strategies, all that remains to be done is to set priorities to implement these strategies. Specifically, we need to assign specific tasks to specific individuals or project teams. The reason for this is twofold:
- Priorities give the team a focus to achieve important tasks that will enhance the business.
- Prioritising establishes specific actions which are required to implement the overall plan.
Any action item needs to be measurable, have an end date, and be assigned to a person or project team. I’d like to share some examples of actions documented in my plan:
- Develop a schedule and theme for blog posts for 2023
- Complete building of business diagnostic application
- Put together webinar content and slide deck
These actions have completion dates and someone responsible for doing the tasks. I use it as a guiding light to give me focus daily on what needs to be done and have me working on those things that are important to my business.
Our action plan will always be aligned with our business strategy. For instance, the actions noted above were a result of the strategies identified in my plan.
- Marketing – Promotion/Web/Social Media – We will be leaders in the use of the web and social media as the key platform for reaching our target market.
So for the one strategy in relation to promotion I have come up with 3 key actions to implement this strategy. Another tip that I’d like to share is that I also like to run a sort of 3 tiered action plan in line with 3 of the quadrants of the model that I have shared with you previously. I list all my action plans and these represent all the things I want to get done in the next 12 months. This is my objectives quadrant. I have a further 3 priorities which I call my projects. These are the projects that I want to complete in the next 3 months. And finally, I have my runway which are the things that I plan to get done this week. This really does create some order on what you should be doing and is aligned with your larger vision and mission.
So that really is as simple as it is! If you’d like me to send you a pro forma to help you get a better understanding, please feel free to contact me on richard@coumans.com.au. Until next time happy, planning and more importantly good luck with your implementation!
