Cementing the Idea - The Action Plan
This is where you plan and schedule together as a group. We call it an Action Plan.
Let’s quickly look at the basics of an Action Plan:
Once you’ve got the great idea, and everyone agrees, you need to:
- Arrange resources, such as, who or what is required - and who pays for it
- Allocate individual responsibilities
- Schedule the idea through to a successful conclusion. Make exact dates. No hazy promises.
- See who else needs to agree and plan for that if necessary.
It mightn’t be you that carries out all these tasks. You might share them with another person. This is fine. Just so long as what is written and agreed actually happens.
Just to make sure, it’s good to specifically address the Quiet Person or the Angry Person in the room, and ensure they feel okay about the Action Plan.
But most of all, it’s vital that you get hard dates into your Action Plan - dates that are diarised - all the way to the conclusion.
Remember that other people in the organisation are contending for diary space with your group members. So unless you nail all dairies down to definite dates you run the risk that people will duck out of their responsibilities.
At the very least the date for the next meeting (should another meeting be required!) must be diarised. But this is a poor second prize. Schedules through to completion are the only schedules worth having.
If you’re having difficulty say:
John, unless we can properly nail this down it won’t happen, and we won’t deliver the Vision. Give us your preferred dates and we’ll all try and see how we can work with them
Karen, if you can’t manage such-and-such can you delegate someone who can do it? It’s better to go forward than to have one person hold up the rest of the group.
Andrew, I appreciate your difficulty. Can you give us something firm we can go on, otherwise we might as well ditch the whole thing, which would be a great shame? What are your best dates?
Once everything is scheduled and the Action Plan agreed on, you now have a successful meeting behind you - a meeting that made a difference. Well done! |
