Strategic Action Plans-the true enablers of a strategic plan

by: Steven Bowman
Copyright 2008 by Conscious Governance.
All rights reserved. You may forward this in its entirety to anyone you wish.

To ensure a nonprofit strategic plan is effective, there need to be specific action plans for each of the strategies. This is the step where practical details are added to the strategies adopted. Without these action plans, the strategic plan runs the risk of being just a simple wish list of high sounding ideals. In our experience over 80% of all strategic plans are missing key elements of the action planning process.

The two key elements in robust action plans are the timelines and the success measures. The timelines (start and finish dates) provide the prioritization mechanism and ensure the project gets started and completed on time. The success measures provide the accountability mechanism for the nonprofit Board and staff. These are the two key elements that are most often missing from Strategic action plans.

Action Plans guaranteed to create action

The format of action plans that we have found makes a true difference in the ability to deliver against the strategic plan include the following:

1. Action Plan description;
2. Scope of project;
3. Resources;
4. Start date;
5. Finish date;
6. Project manager;
7. Success measure;
8. Ethical implications.
9. Risk issues

Each strategy may well have more than one Action Plan, with each plan targeting a different aspect of the strategy, or developing into a hierarchy of plans that need to be completed in a particular sequence. There are usually between two and five action plans per strategy.

The following example shows samples of completed Action Plans.

Strategy 1: Develop partnerships and alliances
Action Plan 1.1 – Develop strategic relationships with partners to take advantage of new scientific advances for manufacturing and technology
Scope: Identify who the main players are and who we want to partner with, establish formal relationships, develop protocols for translating relationships into projects that will enable manufacturers to take advantage of changes in science and technology. Act as a catalyst. Investigate ways of implementing national rollouts, and the benefits for the region.
Resources: nil
Start Date: Sept 09 Complete Date: Sept 010 (review Feb 10)
Project Manager: GM
Success Measures: All identified partners have a formally signed MOU
Ethics: Manage IP implications. Manage relationships with universities and TAFES
Risks: Seen to be taking the side of vested interests

Strategy 3: Align Resources and Staffing with the needs of the strategic plan
Action Plan 3.1 – Development of infrastructure to meet service needs
Scope: Completion of an integrated health service for both sites. Buildings/land to suit services. Redevelopment plan for all sites, funding and development strategy. Complete range of health on one site. Land acquisitions required? Suitable accommodation infrastructure to support development. Environmentally sustainable design. Science and technology (IT networking).
Resources: $10m
Start Date: May 2008
Complete Date: Oct 2011 for plan and capital approvals
Project Manager: CEO
Success Measures: Reduction in recurrent operating costs by at least 5%. 30% reduction in environmental footprint in energy and water. All identified service needs are met by the new infrastructure.
Ethics: Development doesn’t impinge on neighbouring providers.
Risks: Timing - funding

A short description of each of the elements of an action plan are provided below.

Action Plan description
This is the description of the Action Plan to achieve a Strategy or KRA that summarises what the action plan is about.

Scope of project
This is the logical, step by step approach to implementing the Action Plan. The scope provides a start, middle and end point to assist the project manager undertake the action. The scope may change as the project gets underway.

Resources
Dollars, materials, assets, consultants, external staff, or anything that will have an impact on the budget should be included here. The specific dollar amounts do not need to be quantified at this stage. Staff then need to develop costings and relevant financial models to further quantify the impact of this action plan. It is important at this stage not to get distracted by whether the organization can afford the resource required. That is up to the Board to decide, not the planning group:

Start
Estimate when the best start date might be. This should be by month, rather than week or day. This will be reviewed later when all Action Plans have been completed, and analysis of time lines can occur, for example, ‘May 2008’. The question to ask here is “What is the most logical date to start this project, when the Board should start focusing attention on this action plan and start receiving progress reports.”

Completion
This is the month when the Action Plan should be completed. Estimate how long you believe the project will take, for example, ‘November 2009’. Do not use “ongoing” as a completion date. Each action plan is essentially a project which has a start and completion date, after which that action is evaluated whether it is robust enough to then become an ongoing activity of the organization. The question to ask here is “How long should this project take? Is it a 3 month, 6 month 12 months, 18 months or even longer project?”

Project Manager
Allocate a person to this responsibility, not a committee. There needs to be an identifiable individual who will be held accountable for the delivery of the Action Plan. This is often the CEO or a senior executive, but can also be a Board member if it is a true Board matter eg governance review or Board succession planning project

Success measure
This is one of the most critical components of the Action Plan. Identify what the Board would consider a suitable outcome. Each Action Plan must have a success measure that is identifiable and measurable. Success measures are the most commonly ignored items of a Strategic Plan, yet are the lynchpin behind accountability. The question to ask here is “What would the world’s best job look like, how would we measure it, and what level would we be happy with”.

Ethical implications
This section identifies if there are any issues of rights, obligations, fairness, or integrity inherent in the action plan. Once these have been identified, the results need to be fed back to the Scope section and this Scope section rewritten to take into account the identified ethical issues. This enables the project team to look at the action plan from a different perspective, that of ethics.

Risk issues
Identify all the risks associated with the action plan. Identify how each of these can be turned to strategic advantage, and write back into Scope section. These risks can then be added to the organizational risk library.

About the author: Steven Bowman is an international speaker, best-selling author and global leader in providing practical frameworks and comprehensive approaches to assist Boards and Senior Executive Teams to reach higher levels of conscious awareness in governance, leadership, strategy and risk. Authors of Conscious Leadership-the Key to Success, and Leading Yourself to Money with Consciousness

Steven Bowman can be contaced by E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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