90% of organizations fail to execute their strategies, according to Inc. Why? Because most organizations do not spend the time and resources necessary to create and implement the action plan associated with the strategic plan.

Author and management consultant, Peter Ducker, said, “Strategic planning is the continuous process of making present entrepreneurial (risk-taking) decisions systematically and with the greatest knowledge of their futurity; organizing systematically the efforts needed to carry out these decisions; and measuring the results of these decisions against the expectations through organized, systematic feedback.”

Your Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) spent a plethora of hours defining the strategic plan for your organization, but to ensure the strategic plan is implemented, an action plan needs to be created. At MPWRSource, our plans have plans, and it can be true for you as well. The Strategic plan is the overarching plan, whereas the action plan breaks the strategic plan into manageable and measurable pieces. In essence, an action plan describes how an organization is going to accomplish its goals.

Having a Strategic Action Plan

The action plan enforces accountability. People are assigned annual, quarterly, monthly, and daily tasks with corresponding KPIs or goals and deadlines. By completing these tasks, the organization has a high likelihood of achieving the overarching mission, vision, and goals of the organization. Also, a detailed action plan helps the organization decide how to allocate resources that will drive the strategic plan forward. Finally, to ensure accountability, progress reporting must be defined. For example, each board or executive team meeting should include updates and reports on the action plan.

What should be included in my action plan?

For an action plan to be effective the following elements need to be included:

1. Make sure your actions align with your goals. Identify key actions or milestones that need to be completed to reach your key performance indicators (KPIs).
2. Prioritize the actions based on importance to goal and time sensitivity. This is the time to separate the essential tasks from the “nice to have” tasks. Prioritize those activities that are imperative for the organization to reach their goals. Create five or six key “rocks”. These actions, or rocks, must be completed to achieve the goals set forth in the strategic plan.
3. Be specific. Be SMART. Meaning make SMART goals. Goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. For example, if an organization wants to increase their brand awareness in the market they serve by 20%, a SMART goal may look like “the inbound team will raise Facebook impressions by 20% by the end of the year”.
4. Set deadlines and assign owners. Make sure that there is a person assigned to each task, as well as deadlines. If people and deadlines are not assigned, people won’t know who is responsible and the tasks won’t get completed. After the SPC and board/executive team creates the highest-level strategic goals, the executive director or CEO should work with the staff on creating the action plan and deadline.
5. Make sure that each task is owned. Feel free to ask for volunteers, but you can also let the leaders and managers assign the tasks. Either way, make sure each task is assigned. For the task to be “owned” by a person, they must understand clearly what they are responsible for and the task’s deadline.
6. Develop an action plan for implementation. After you have listed the specific tasks, dates, and owners, now you must put these into an actual plan, like a spreadsheet, chart, or project management tool.
7. Track and report on progress. Use a spreadsheet, chart, or project management tool to keep record of your progress and communicate consistently on the organization’s progress. At a minimum, the SPC should update the board or executive team about the status of the action plan. All meetings, including staff, department, leadership, etc., should always contain agenda items that relate back to the action plan.

Creating Your Action Plan

It is important to create key habits when creating an action plan.

Key Habits for a Successful Action Plan

Alignment

Everyone in the organization must be aligned with the number one action that needs to be accomplished each quarter to move the company forward.

Clear Communication

Communications must be accurate and consistent. The strategic plan and the action plan must stay at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Therefore, huddles and meetings should cascade from upper management to the front line.

Welcome Feedback

Ongoing employee feedback is welcomed and systematized. Employees will be key in helping the organization to identify obstacles and opportunities.

Customer feedback is crucial to the strategic plan and action plan, and data should be gathered and reported upon frequently.

Stay on Mission

An organization’s core beliefs should be defined and reflected in all interactions and activities.

Know Your Market

There should be clear understanding of the firm’s market position. This drives strategic planning, marketing, and sales.

Reporting

All employees should be able to report at any time what their productivity is and how it compares against goals.

Make Meetings a Priority

A “situation room” should be established where the executive team meets weekly or monthly to discuss SMART goals, data, trends, and priorities. Make sure you celebrate wins! As goals are being achieved, employees and teams should be recognized. If the action plan is carried through successfully, and the annual goals are achieved, the organization should celebrate.

The Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal

Most organizations are driven by some big, hairy, audacious goal. This goal is where the organization wants to be in 10 to 25 years. For example, Microsoft’s big, hair, audacious goal was to be on every desktop.

The only way to achieve the big, hairy, audacious goal is to map it out. Have a plan. A dream without a plan is just a wish. Each year, an organization needs to map out its strategy to reach its goals not just for the coming year, but because what is done today impacts where the organization will be in 10 to 25 years.

Vincent Van Gogh said, “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” This sums up well how the great thing (the strategic plan) can get done by doing a series of small things (the action plan).