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Process improvement project - Communication -

action plan
What is an Action Plan used for?

  • Small-scale planning

  • "Simple projects” can be completed with “Simple Plans”

  • Action Plans focus on a single goal (unlike ToDo lists)

  • Action plans list all of the tasks required to meet an objective

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Examples include putting together a presentation for managers, creating a knowledge base document, or defining a process

Step 1 – Identify Tasks

  1. Start by brainstorming all of the tasks that you need to complete to accomplish your objective.  It's helpful to start this process at the very beginning

  2. What's the very first action you'll need to take?

  3. Once that task is complete, what comes next?

  4. Are there any steps that should be prioritized to meet specific deadlines, or because of limits on other people's availability?

Step 2 – Analyse and Delegate Tasks

Now that you can see the entire project from beginning to end, look at each task in greater detail

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  • Are there any steps that you could drop, but still meet your objective?

  • Which tasks could you delegate to someone else on your team?

  • Are there any deadlines for specific steps?

  • Do you need to arrange additional resources?

Step 3 - Double check with SCHEMES

Use SCHEMES to check that your plan is comprehensive

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  • Space

  • Cash

  • Helpers/People

  • Equipment

  • Materials

  • Expertise

  • Systems

 

You may not need to think about all of these to complete your project. 

e.g. for a small internal project to streamline the format of your team's reports, you might only need to think about "Helpers/People," "Expertise," and "Systems"

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Summary - Learning from your Action Plan

If you think you'll be trying to achieve a similar goal again, revise your Action Plan after the work is complete, by making a note of anything that you could have done better.

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Could you have avoided a last-minute panic if you'd alerted an internal customer in advance about the size of order you'd be placing. Or maybe you didn't allow enough time to do certain tasks.

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Tip

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If you'll be doing similar work again, consider turning your Action Plan into an Aide Memoire. This is a checklist that you progressively refine and improve to make sure that you remember to do everything important for success.

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You can also use Action Plans in conjunction with your To-Do Lists

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