| People will say you need to plan and assume that the process is obvious. If it was, organisation would be the norm and not the exception. Use these practical tips on how to plan to get you there. |
| The steps to the planning process are described as follows. The trick is to define what is the expected outcome of the exercise. |
- Define outcome.
- List the main things you need to do to achieve the objective (10 steps).
- For each of the main steps, break them down into smaller steps needed to achieve a bigger step, repeat until a sensible detail achieved.
- Set dates for each activity
Allocate who is going to do it
Identify dependencies, i.e. Step 4 cannot happen until step 1 is completed.
- Estimate resources and costs.
- Peer review the steps, details and dependencies to ensure agreement.
- Ensure resources can deliver what is expected, i.e. not over committed.
- Build in some slack to allow for delays and things to go wrong.
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| The approach may be iterative and not all steps and dependencies are known. It is about sharing information with people and having an agreement on the framework to start. |
| A bad plan can be corrected and modified. With no plan, no one knows where to start or what to do. |
