Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance
Proper Planning Prevents
Poor Performance
Failing
to plan is planning to fail
Time spent in
reconnaissance is never wasted
No battle plan ever survives
first contact with the enemy
What can go wrong will go
wrong
Murphy
was an optimist
All the above are
proverbs or sayings revolving around the delicate art of planning, whether it
be an event, a sales campaign, a shareholder meeting, a new product launch or
an employee satisfaction survey.
I use the word “art”
when talking about planning, as it is as much of this as a science. Many people have written about the steps
needed for effective planning, and two of the quotes above are from them. In the end, it boils down to a number of
factors such as specialisation, technical knowledge, type of exercise and, most
of all, experience.
As a guide though, you
will need to consider:
·
What your target or
end is (i.e. a university Open Day, a shareholder meeting, a new product
launch, a charity fund raising-event, next year’s business or even a child’s
birthday party). The ultimate goal is
different for each activity or event.
What do you see the event looking like?
·
What resources you will
need (human, physical and financial).
You may need people to help or supervise, equipment such as vehicles (or
even public transport) and every project needs a budget of some sort.
·
For people, what
skills will you need? Are they readily
available?
·
How much freedom to act can you give them? The more control, the more you will need to
make decisions yourself and the more bottlenecks could occur.
·
Will you need a
particular venue or premises (and is it/are they available)? Is there sufficient parking for cars? What are rail/bus links like?
·
What legal or local
regulatory obligations may affect the plan?
How will you overcome them?
·
What could go
wrong? Too many plans assume that things
will go well. However, the unforeseen
can and does happen regularly. How will
you cope? Will you need insurance? What scenarios could derail things, and how will you respond?
·
How much will it
cost? Where will the funding come
from?
·
How much time will you
need to put everything together? This is
usually the main issue as you will often find that you have less time that you
would ideally wish for. You will need to
prioritise what gets done first, what are the “need to have’s” versus the “nice
to have’s”.
The only way to
develop your skills is practice. This may mean making mistakes, but you will
learn from them and soon become a much-valued member of your team or group.
I usually use a “grid”
to help me plan. This isn’t perfect (and
often gets altered depending what I’m doing), but it helps focus me.
|
Project
Name
|
Name of the project or event
|
|
Objective
|
What will “success” look like?
|
|
Resources
|
Who/what will I need to succeed? Who/what do I have?
|
|
Deliverables
|
What will need to be done to ensure success?
|
|
Deadline
|
How long do I have/how long will I need?
|
|
Legal/regulatory
|
What laws/rules/customs, etc will I need to observe?
|
|
Environmental
|
What environmental considerations (if any) will there be?
|
|
Training
|
Will I/my team need any training before we start/as we
progress?
|
|
Stakeholders
|
Who could have an interest in this, e.g. staff, customers,
unions, legal authorities, shareholders, local community?
|
|
Rules/Guidelines
|
How strict or general should we be to allow people to work
independently?
|
|
Communication
|
Who needs to be kept informed? How often?
What information will I need and when?
How will we communicate?
|
|
Risks
|
What might go wrong?
How will I put it right?
|
|
Early
Warnings
|
How can I anticipate things going wrong (if at all)?
|
|
Resources
|
Who/what will I need to succeed? Who/what do I have?
|
|
Cost
|
How much will it all cost assuming I get the time and
resources I need?
|
|
Completion
|
How will I know that I’ve really finished the task?
|
|
Recognition/Rewards
|
How will I recognise success and how often?
|
One thing you’ll
notice is that there’s a considerable amount of thought required before you get to allocating resources
and budget. That’s how it should be.
Once you’ve submitted
the plan (and it’s been approved!) remember that you need to track things to make sure everything’s
on time/on budget. Nowadays, you need to
have enough flexibility built in to be able to react to changing
circumstances. There’s no use following
a plan that clearly no longer suits new conditions – that’s the road to
disaster.
Labels: Career, Financial, Productivity, Risk, Strategy
posted by William Martin @ 12:18
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home