TACTICAL (ANNUAL) PLANNING
TAKING YOUR PRIVATE GOALS FOR SUCCESS AND MAKING THEM PUBLIC
The first three of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen R. Covey) and private victories that allow you to define your personal goals into goals of your business. The Strategic part of Planning will expose your long term needs for your business in terms that can be measured and monitored over the five year period. The Tactical Portion of the Plan involves you as the owner of the agency AND your employees through whom you hope to achieve your goals.
OBJECTIVES – YOUR ANNUAL (TACTICAL) PLAN
Once your Reality Test your Mission and Vision by determining whether you are willing or able to activate your Strategies you are ready to take the lowest levels of goals for each of your Strategies and construct them into a realistic Tactical Plan for the next year.
The lowest level of long term goals for each Strategy becomes the Objectives for your Tactical Plan. If you find yourself with short term objectives that do not fit within the Strategies that will get you to your Mission and Vision for the future — why are you pursuing an objective that doesn’t support your long term goals??
Each objective needs an owner who is responsible for measuring the results monthly (see Benchmarking , below) who may or may not be instrumental in the activation of the Objective.
ACTION PLANNING
Creating a list of Objectives for the next twelve months does not accomplish them, it just documents where you want to be in each critical category by the end of the next twelve months.
Most organizations (large and small) fail in their Planning because they identify what needs to be done but do not identify HOW the objectives can be achieved. Even if Action Plans are created, they are never triggered.
In order to activate the Objectives you must identify one or more Action Plans for each Objective that, if accomplished, would reasonably result in the achievement of the Objective by the end of the next year.
An Action Plan must meet the ROAM requirements (be Realistic, Objective instead of subjective, Achievable, and Measurable). If not, the Action Plan must be revised to meet these requirements.
BENCHMARKING
Most Plans fail simply because the Action Plans are never triggered or are dropped at the first sign of stress. A solution for that issue is to use the Plan as the management tool for the agency. In order to do that, we must estimate the position at which the Objective should be achieved, by month. These BENCHMARKS are established subsequent to the validation of the Objectives and Action Plans as realistic.
Benchmarks for each Action Plan are constructed by month and reported publicly by the “owner” of each Objective after the conclusion of each month. These Management Meetings are the baseline for managing the agency. If the Benchmarks are not achieved, the reporter is to simply report the results each month of the quarter.
RE-PROJECTIONS
The Tactical Plan is a LIVING DOCUMENT, meant to change as the year progress in order to identify the year-end financial results of the agency as early in the year as possible. In agencies in which we have participated in the facilitation of the Strategic Planning process each year, the year end results can be fixed (within a few percentage points) by mid-year every year.
Re-projections are made after the first and second quarter. The re-projection at the end of the third quarter is usually the lead-in to the next iteration of the Strategic and Tactical Plan. After the first year, the process includes a Year-End Projection based on the prior Tactical Plan as well as revision or validation of the Mission and Vision Statements and Strategies and the creation of the next year’s Tactical Plan Objectives, Action Plans and Benchmarks.
BUDGETING
When all is said and done, every agency is a financial based business requiring a level of Return of Investment to the owners sufficient to achieve their personal goals. While most smaller agencies do not budget, all larger agencies either do or should work within a working Budget to assure they have sufficient revenues to cover their expenses and a fair return to the owners.
The Tactical Planning process is a perfect way of establishing and managing to a budget to assure that sufficient income is generated to cover expenses or that we know when it isn’t in order to allow for mid-term adjustments to minimize any negative results.
One the Tactical Plan is established (Objectives and Action Plans), the agency’s revenue should be identified (New and Renewal) by department (i.e. PL , CL, L&H) and projected for contingency income based on the agency’s history and its objectives for growth and retention. Expense budgets are best created from a zero base by the agency’s financial manager including all expenses derived from the Action Plans submitted and accepted as necessary to sponsor the agency’s revenue expectations.
Budget reporting should be Actual vs. Budget, vs. Prior Year by month and YTD. Revisions required in Quarterly Planning Meetings are often derived from revenues and expenses above or below expectations from original budgets.
Budgeting is revised monthly or quarterly but a BUDGET can only be cast once a year. All revisions after the first Budget are Forecasts and will become more accurate as the year progresses.
The activity of Strategic and Tactical Planning is actually more important than the accuracy of the results. The activity requires and results in changes in performance activities that promotes growth of the individuals and of the organization. Agencies who plan are the highest performing agencies in the country, whether large or small. We encourage you to initiate Strategic Planning this year. The planning process is not limited to your fiscal or calendar year-end. Many agencies initiate their plan mid-year in order to avoid particularly busy times within the agency. Call us at 800 779 2430 with questions or for assistance.