Ready, Set, Go

Organizational progress is generally driven by the identification of goals and objectives. Strategic planning, which defines goals and objectives, is a formal process in organizations, regardless of size.

Whether it’s project management, quality improvement, human resource development or product design, all these important organizational components are typically driven toward predefined goals and objectives.

Attaining goals and objectives generally depends on successfully completing a series of activities or tasks. These can be concurrent and sequential. Additional activities and tasks often are identified during—or as a result of—the completion of established tasks. The process, of course, is dynamic and requires ongoing review and evaluation of overall timing and commitments.

Management and oversight of activities and tasks leading to a defined objective take many forms. The process used by organizations ranges from those without any formal structure to comprehensive computer-based information management systems. The most common process, however, uses some form of action plan.

Figure 1 shows a basic description of the action plan process. Action plans vary in format and content—from simple checklists to elaborate, macro-enabled spreadsheets.

Figure 1

Ineffective action plans
Many action plans fail to lead to the completion of specified tasks and activities within the required timeframe. The following 10 causes of ineffective action plans were drawn from a review of action plans used by one organization and its suppliers during a 10-year period:

A goal or objective is not clearly defined. The action plan doesn’t state a clear goal or objective by describing precisely what the listed actions intend to accomplish. A clearly stated objective is necessary to drive the process and validate the relevance of the subsequent actions. President John F. Kennedy gave an excellent example in 1961 when he set "… the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."1 It was absolutely clear what was to be achieved within a defined period of time. Conversely, a goal of "improving quality by 50%" lacks the information needed to make it tangible.

The stated action is really just a wish. The specified action often is not a concise, focused description of exactly what must be done. Instead, it is a general statement of what it is hoped to be achieved. For example, "conduct sort, store, shine, standardize and sustain (5S) training to improve workplace organization."

Someone’s best guess is often used to define target dates. Target completion dates often are not realistic or fail to recognize resource constraints. The dates often are based only on the dictate of a manager or other person with authority over those assigned to perform the task. Unrealistic dates become apparent when they’re repeatedly extended.

Little or no follow-up. After the action plan is published and distributed to those assigned to complete the work, there is no follow-up until a formal review meeting is held, typically between one week and one month after the action plan was issued.

Review meetings turn into problem-solving sessions. The absence of effective follow-up between meetings results in scheduled review meetings becoming a forum for the discussion, investigation and analysis that should have taken place before the meeting.

Finger-pointing. A common problem seen in action plans is the assignment of more than one person to an action item. Sometimes an entire department or workgroup is assigned. Only one person should be assigned to each action step. Although a team may be working to achieve an objective, an individual must take responsibility for each action, either as the person responsible or lead coordinator. Failure to assign actions to one individual often leads to confusion and significantly diminishes accountability.

"Ongoing" becomes the default timing. The "ongoing" entry in the completion due date field is a clear indication that the stated action is not specific to the issue being addressed. Instead, the action is a part of the normal process, which evidently was not being done properly or consistently. The reasons it was not being done properly or consistently must first be determined to identify the actions required to ensure continued compliance.

TBD is the person responsible. To be determined (TBD) is used often when no one in the group is willing or able to commit or take responsibility for the stated action. It also can indicate insufficient resources.
"I didn’t know I was assigned to that action." Often, this statement is heard when an action step was assigned to someone who was not present when the action plan was created and failed to see the assignment when the action plan was received.

No one can remember what the action item means or why it was added. So, just delete it, right? While this may seem unlikely, it has been witnessed in follow-up meetings on more than one occasion. A poorly worded action step, combined with the lack of buy-in from the person assigned to it, has the potential to become a requirement for which no one can recall its original reason or intent. The only option is to remove it from the action plan. When observed, this signals a clear indication the process being used to define and develop action plans is totally ineffective.

Rationalizing objectives
In addition to being based on a clearly stated objective, an action plan also should identify the timeframe in which the objective is to be accomplished. A common problem is that the objective is not clearly described, and sometimes it’s not defined at all. Although important, clearly defining the objective alone is not enough to ensure the action plan will drive attainment of the desired result. It is equally important that the individuals working the action plan believe the objective is realistic and attainable.

For this to happen, the objective must be rationalized. Analysis must be undertaken to understand the gap between the current state and desired state. The reason for pursuing the desired state must be clear to the individual or group being tasked to achieve it. The individual or group must believe the objective is attainable based on a rational assessment of the facts, available data and information.

For example, management may establish an objective to reduce the finished goods inventory of a product to half of its current level. The justification for this objective might be that some of the floor space used for the product is needed for another purpose. The alternative to not creating the needed space by reducing inventory is an expensive facility expansion.

Continuously pursuing inventory reduction should be a goal of every organization, but actual inventory levels are generally predicated by current manufacturing planning and efficiency combined with the stability—or instability—of scheduled demand.

To identify constructive actions that will lead to achieving the objective, each team member must understand and believe the end result will not create additional risk or add to their workload. For this to happen, the potential impact of the proposed objective must be thoroughly evaluated and understood.

Management must acknowledge any implications identified by the team and take appropriate actions to ensure that current processes and performance will not be compromised as a result of achieving the objective.

In the case of the earlier example, concerns about the impact of reduced inventory on the ability to satisfy customer demand must be identified as issues and addressed through the action plan. Similarly, manufacturing constraints, such as capacity and raw material lead times, also must be considered.

This rationalization may lead to the identification of other objectives that must be completed before the inventory reduction objective is feasible. This level of understanding is essential to obtaining team commitment, without which the action plan process becomes seriously compromised.

Identifying issues
Before defining the specific action steps necessary to achieve the stated objective, it’s helpful to identify the broad issues that must be addressed. Identifying issues has the benefit of breaking down the objective into smaller, more manageable elements and also providing a clear purpose for the subsequent action steps contained in the action plan.

So, what is an issue? For the purpose of action plans, an issue is something that must be addressed to attain an overall goal or objective but can be eliminated by completing specific actions. In other words, an issue can be considered an obstacle to progress: something for which the solution is known but which requires the completion of specific action steps to overcome.

For example, "insufficient containers may be available to support the planned process move." Action steps might include determining the exact number of containers actually available, determining the number needed to support the move, obtaining spending approval, ordering additional containers if needed and defining a storage location for the additional containers.

An issue is not the same as a problem, but problems often are identified and require solving to complete the stated goal or objective. In this situation, the issue identified in the action plan becomes how to resolve the problem, not the problem statement itself. Problem-solving activities can be identified as action steps. The action plan becomes the method for facilitating and monitoring the problem solving process, not the process itself.

Often, a team will commence listing required actions based on its understanding of the issues at that point in time. If the issues are not clearly stated within an action plan, two problems can result:

Not stating the issue allows for the potential of misunderstanding or differences in interpretation by individual team members. This can lead to conflict or confusion during subsequent follow-up or management review sessions.
As the action plan develops, grouping successive action steps with those actions that already relate to a specific issue provides a clear picture of the progress and path being followed.

Action steps
Action can be defined as the process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim. A common problem seen in action plans is that the stated action is not specific and is too broad.

For example, "Train associates to use the new equipment." To complete this action, several steps may be required. These might include preparing training material and aids, identifying a location and creating a schedule.

Therefore, to help drive statements that are more concise and specific, the column heading in the action plan should read "action step," not just "action."

As shown in Figure 2, an action step can be considered the rung in a ladder. Successfully completing one step permits progress to the next step. The completion of successive steps leads to elimination of the issue. This also explains why it’s important to identify issues and link action steps to each issue. Often, more than one ladder is required to meet an objective or goal.

Figure 1

To be effective, each action step should begin with a verb and be followed by an object. For example, "wash the car." In general, the shorter and more concise the action step, the greater the probability it will be completed. This is because it’s more readily understood, and completion can be easily judged or confirmed.

A column sometimes included in action plans is "How is this measured?" The purpose of this column is to identify the method by which the completion of each action item will be confirmed. Examples include graphs, charts, reports and audits. This column shouldn’t be necessary if the action required to address a well-stated issue is separated into concise action steps.

Breaking down the action required to change an issue into steps assigned to only one person is key to the effectiveness of action plans:

- The thought process required to determine specific actions provides a better understanding of precisely what is required.
- It allows for the identification of who should be assigned responsibility for completing each step. Often, recognition that several people are involved emerges. A clear indication that an action statement has not been broken down into small enough steps is when it has been assigned to more than one person to complete.
- Determining specific action steps identifies potential obstacles or other issues that often are not evident from a broad action statement.

Focused responsibility and follow-up
Another key to the effectiveness of action plans is realistic timing and ownership for each action step. When defining an action step, it’s crucial to obtain agreement from the person assigned to the step. While the required action clearly may fall within the duties and responsibility of a specific person or position, arbitrarily assigning it without the courtesy of confirming agreement likely will reduce the priority it will be given and can even cause it to be deliberately ignored.

Similarly, the target completion date shouldn’t be based only on the overall timing of the objective. If it’s to be achieved, the completion date must be attainable by the person assigned to it. A date that does not comprehend nor account for available resources or other constraints is unlikely to be met.

It’s common to see target completion dates that get repeatedly pushed out because the original expectation wasn’t realistic. Up-front agreement from the person accepting responsibility for completing each action is an important first step in achieving the overall timing.

Perhaps the most significant reason for ineffective action plans is intermittent or the absence of follow-up, which means daily awareness by each person who has accepted responsibility for completing an action step. This requires discipline on the part of that individual to make a daily comparison of actual progress and planned activities against the action step’s promised date commitment.

An action plan should be used as a frequent guide for setting schedules and planning activities. Follow-up also means management oversight. Within management’s broad responsibility to set priorities, maintain focus and provide resources, regular monitoring of action plans drives the discipline required to make action plans effective.

Management review
An interesting observation regarding the use of action plans has been the apparent lack of closure or assessment regarding the effectiveness of an action plan in accomplishing its original goal or objective. An action plan is typically abandoned and forgotten or replaced with a new one after the goal or objective is reached. This violates the plan-do-check-act continuous improvement method, and it’s a likely reason the action plan process does not improve.

Completed action plans should be evaluated to identify how effective they were in achieving their stated objective. This can be done easily by measuring key attributes and charting results. The radar chart example in Figure 3 shows performance of five attributes from a completed action plan. Any point value less than 10 indicates potential improvement. In this example, no commitment (promise date) was made for when 10% of the identified action steps would be completed.

Figure 3

The value of 10 for "all action steps were completed" indicates this absence of a commitment did not ultimately prevent the completion of all action steps. Not establishing a promise date when an action step is identified, however, can seriously impact the priority and focus it is given.

Of greater significance is the following data drawn from Figure 3: Half of the action steps for which commitment dates were given weren’t completed by the date promised. Because the original promise date was not met, 20% of the original promise date commitments were changed at least once. Of those action steps for which new promise date commitments were made, only 30% were completed by the revised date. This data should be used to determine reasons and causes so the overall process can be improved.

"Plan your work, work your plan" is a simple but powerful concept, but it requires structure and discipline to be effective. The use of action plans in a standardized format with clear definitions provides a uniform structure from which measured progress can be made.

Adding a management review activity confirms the ongoing effectiveness of action plans and identifies areas for improvement. This ultimately leads to a process that drives the relentless execution of activities required to improve business performance.

Reference
Richard Stenger, “Man on the Moon: Kennedy Speech Ignited the Dream,” CNN.com, May 25, 2001, http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/05/25/kennedy.moon.

Article Credits: QP