As the size of a company grows, it becomes more and more difficult to grasp the entire business operations, as there are limits to the kind of management that has been used in the past. It will be necessary to change the understanding of business operations to a form appropriate to the size of the company. One of the ways to grasp the business methods is to incorporate action plans. In this article, we will cover an overview of action plans and examples of how to create them.
What is an action plan?
Just because you have a business plan doesn’t mean that the plan will be implemented in reality. This is because if the plan itself is rough, it will become a mere drawing and a meaningless plan. To understand the entire business, it is better to make an action plan instead of a business plan.
An action plan is a plan of action that incorporates specific action guidelines into a schedule in order to achieve a goal. The goal is to understand and properly manage the work by determining exactly who will do what, when, and the means to achieve the goal.
However, there may be unexpected oversights in the execution of the plan. If you want to realize your action plan, you should also incorporate PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Evaluate, Improve).
Advantages of creating an action plan
Let’s take a look at three advantages of creating an action plan to see how it can benefit you.
Clarify what you need to do now
Since action plans are created while considering the necessary actions to be taken in response to subdivided goals, actions to be taken in response to goals become clear. It is easy to reflect them as specific tasks.
In addition, because it is clear what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by, employees can incorporate it into their daily tasks while being aware of deadlines. It is said that many of the reasons for poor work performance are due to a lack of understanding of how to proceed with work, so an action plan can help improve the situation.
Be able to objectively judge the current situation
If the necessary actions can be listed in an action plan, it will be easier to grasp not only the actions to be taken to achieve the goal, but also the status of how much progress has been made on the actions.
Being able to objectively judge progress means that you can notice any shortcomings or delays at an early stage. The earlier we know the progress toward our goals, the easier it is to take action. This allows us to be more flexible in our actions, such as strengthening cooperation to achieve our goals, or making changes to the goals themselves.
Maintain high motivation
An action plan is like a small goal, as it breaks down the actions to be taken to achieve the goal. Since you will be working on numerous actions to achieve your goal, you will probably start taking actions and achieve the small goals many times.
Sometimes you may feel distant from achieving your goal, but even if your goal seems far away, if you are able to achieve small goals, you will know that you are steadily getting closer to achieving your goal. Another advantage of action plans is that it is easy to feel that the results of your actions are bringing you closer to achieving your goals, and because you get a sense of accomplishment, you can maintain a high level of motivation.
Specific examples of action plans and points to consider when creating them
Here are some points and concrete examples of how to create an effective action plan.
Procedures for creating an action plan
An action plan is created by following the steps below.
Set the goals you want to achieve.
2. Categorize the work by department, etc.
3. Subdivide the goals by business according to the set goals.
In the case of sales, make a list of what needs to be done to achieve the goal from the perspective of each business, such as purchasing, logistics, inventory control, human resource management, finance, and customer evaluation.
4. Specify actions by incorporating 5W1H elements
For each of the listed actions, incorporate the 5W1H elements into a concrete plan for when, how much, and how to divide the workload.
Incorporate specific numbers
The key to creating a clear action plan is to include specific figures. For financial goals, set numerical goals for sales and profit margin, for business processes, set numerical goals for asset efficiency, and for goals that involve customers, set numerical goals for customer satisfaction.
Numerical targets should not be looked at only for a one-year period, but should be broken down into six months, quarters, months, and weeks. By looking at numerical targets in detail, it becomes easier to keep track of the progress of your work. It is important to consider the numerical targets in combination with the time period.
Visualize your action plan
In order to be able to act based on the action plan and grasp the work, we must not forget to visualize the action plan. Visualization makes it easier to understand the big picture.
In addition to using templates that can be used in spreadsheet software, we also recommend using a goal management tool that has a goal achievement function.
Goalous is useful for implementing and operating action plans
To create and operate an action plan, you can use a SNS-type goal management tool Goalous is useful. The key point is that the following functions can be used to create and effectively utilize action plans.
Employees can send out information on the progress of their own goals through photo actions.
The ability to leave reactions and comments on photo actions
The open goal function allows employees to properly grasp the status of goal achievement.
The open goal function can be used to evaluate and improve the action plan.
The open goal function can be used to evaluate and improve the action plan. – The evaluation function can be used to visualize the actions of the members and can be used for personnel evaluation.
Goalous to visualize your action plans and improve them. This is a great way to visualize and utilize your action plan.
Summary
In order to understand the business, manage the progress of the business, and visualize the business, I recommend creating an action plan. Action plans can be found at Goalous that are more effective when used in conjunction with a goal management tool like .
