ABCs for Managers who Lead – P is for Planning

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States, 1953-1961

Why in the world would we start with such a quotation? Aren’t plans important? Let’s see.

Planning is defined as setting a direction, strategies, tasks and schedules to accomplish specific goals and it is indeed an essential management function. Planning is essential in program/activity management. Ideally, it requires the manager and her team to sit together and have crucial conversations about the future.

There are several typical planning processes that we tend to think of:

• Strategic planning consists of exploring what exists now and where the team wants to be in some defined period in the future. Strategic plans are usually written for periods of three to five years, but should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that the organization is still on track with its plan.
• Operational planning is the nuts and bolts of how the strategic plan will be implemented. These plans are usually written for a year at a time and in conjunction with a review of the strategic plan.
• Workplanning and budgeting is the planning process that many of us with funding from USAID and other donors are most familiar with. The process involves reviewing expected results and developing plans for actions or activities that will achieve these results either within the year or incrementally over the life of a project. Budgets are also plans in that they project the costs to implement the workplans, including materials procured, level of effort of staff, travel, etc.
• Business planning is the process of determining whether or not a new product or service has the potential to be successful and serves as a document to encourage donors or investors to fund the new activity.

The essential elements of a plan are:

• Direction – Where? You need to know where you’re going. “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Lewis Carroll. But where is “there?”
• Actions – How? Once you know where you want to go, you need to know how you will get there. The inverse of the quotation above is that if you know where you want to go, you can identify the road that will take you there. You will know how to get there.
• Results – Did you get there? Planning allows you to be precise about the results you want to achieve and to set indicators so you know whether or not you have succeeded.
• Impact – So what? Planning helps you understand the meaning of your work and why it is important.

Please note that plans are too often put on a figurative “shelf” and not opened again until the next planning period comes. In this way they really are useless. It is important that we treat our plans as “living documents” that we discuss again at regular intervals and are flexible and adapted to reflect changes in circumstances.

Planning well

Start with yourself. What do you need to do to plan and manage your own time well?

• Be clear about your direction.
• Have a vision or picture in your mind of what success would look like and what it would mean to you and others.
• Understand what needs to be done and what results are expected.
• Create a prioritized list of actions you need to take that will help you achieve the results expected.
• “Block” time on your calendar to get specific tasks done in a timely manner and avoid interruptions during that time.
• Measure and evaluate your results to see if you actually arrived at your destination.

Planning well in a team is not too much different from planning for yourself except that it is important to engage others in the process. A participatory process helps build broad ownership and enthusiasm for the plan. This is not an activity to be done alone. The keys to successful plan with a group/team or within an organization are to:

• Develop and communicate a compelling shared vision, set strategic objective(s), and articulate expected results. In other words, create a roadmap.
• Clarify roles, priorities and actions.
• Draw on the strengths of each team member.
• Hold the team and the team members accountable.
• Reduce, to the extent possible, interferences to the group’s work – i.e. excess meetings and emails, conflict, and unrelated demands.

See for yourself

Alanis Business Academy, Episode 151: Planning in an organizational setting

4 Functions of Management: Planning with Vision