COLUMN

WESTON COUNTY GAZETTE

BILL TAYLOR
10/16/09

DEVELOPING THE TACTICS FOR A STRATEGIC PLAN

Developing a strategic plan for your group or agency is useless if you don’t

include tactics to bring the plan to completion. Michael Wilkinson, Certified

Master Facilitator and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc.

provides several steps to see that those tactics are in place.

An organization will likely have 6-12 significant strategic priorities or

initiatives identified that combine to move the organization in a specific

strategic direction. For each of these priority initiatives, you need to develop

a detailed action plan to ensure that each of the initiatives are brought to

completion. A comprehensive action plan details the objectives to be

achieved, deliverables, the steps, responsibilities, costs and timetables.

Action plans have several advantages:

1. The organization can confirm that the resources required to implement

the strategy are worth the benefit gained.

2. The deliverables and steps define for the implementation team when

the initiative is completed.

3. The organization has a road map for monitoring progress in

accomplishing the initiative.

4. All action plans can be summarized to identify resource requirements

and to develop a resource plan to meet those requirements.

The Steps in Creating an Action Plan

1. Assign a member of the strategic planning team as the “owner” of

each action plan.

2. Determine the key results (deliverables) for the strategy. Answer the

question, “When we are done, what will we have in our hands? What will we

have accomplished?”

3. For each deliverable, list the major activities in chronological order.

4. For each activity, identify the person responsible and due date. In

setting dates, you may find it helpful to first put a date on the last activity

and then work backward to the first activity.

5. If more than one person has responsibility, both names should appear.

The name of the person with primary responsibility should appear first.

6. For consistency use a "verb-object" format: start each action with a

verb followed by the objects acted upon (e.g., “Implement and evaluate first

pilot program”)

7. Estimate the out of pocket costs to accomplish each activity and the

amount of internal time required (staff hours or labor hours).

8. Once all individual activities have been estimated, record the total

cost, staff hours and due date.

Quality Check

How do you ensure that you have written a solid action plan? Here is a good

quality check.

• If all the actions are done, will the deliverables be created and the

strategy be completed? If not, additional actions are needed.

• Have you identified the person responsible and the due date for each

action? Without accountability, it will be very easy for the strategy to stall.

• Is each action step a clear activity? For example, “analyze survey

results” is vague. When is the activity done? Better actions would be

“Prepare survey report” or “Develop recommendations from survey results.”

Nearly every group and organization has an action plan. Some exist only in

the minds of the leaders and change regularly with the situation. However,

for clear purpose and efficiency in accomplishing the mission and goals of an

organization, a clear, concise, written action plan should be developed and

reviewed on a regular basis. Additionally, all members of the organization

should be involved in the process of developing the action plan and its

periodic review.

The United States Department of Agriculture, the University of Wyoming, and Weston
County Extension cooperate.