Making Your Plan Stick
If you worked through our September and October posts, you now have a short list of your top 3 initiatives, each with an owner and a way to measure success. That's a solid start toward meaningful change for next year. The next step is to prioritize them and apply a little process rigor to keep everything on track when January gets busy.
Three habits turn that list into a map you can follow.
Put your priorities in order
Rank your initiatives by priority (1, 2, 3 and so on), ensuring that priority 1 gets resources and attention first. That ranking decides when, or even if, each one gets done.
Then map out resources and timing for each initiative:
- Who is on the team for each initiative? Name the people involved and note where the same person or team shows up on more than one initiative.
- Can any of the initiatives be carried out in parallel, or do some need to wait? If different people or teams are needed, multiple initiatives may be able to start at the same time. If two initiatives need the same people or resources, finish the higher-priority one before starting the next.
Finish by assigning a realistic due date to each initiative, based on priority and available resources.
Define what success looks like
To make sure you can track your progress, you'll need to capture:
- Where things stand today (your baseline)
- What success would look like (your desired end state)
- What results you hope to achieve (the measurable targets that show you're on track)
For example, success might look like more projects finishing within budget targets, and the result might be 80% of projects finishing within 5% of planned spending.
Create your one-page map
Put it all on a single page that will serve as your team's map:
- List your initiatives in priority order, with the owner and due date
- Outline your success criteria
- Define the expected results
This page becomes the map for your team, communicating what the business is working on, why, and what the expected outcomes are. You will reference this document again and again as you measure the impact of each initiative.
Maintain momentum
Building a new capability needs some repetition to make it stick. Support your initiatives and your team by checking in regularly to measure progress and adjust as needed:
- Monthly check-in: using the one-page map, review each initiative and discuss progress, obstacles or support needs.
- Quarterly reset: review progress, impact to the business, and any changes to success criteria or expected results.
- Mid-year/end-of-year retrospective: as initiatives are completed, review what worked and what did not, and how completing each initiative has impacted business results.
Taking these steps now can make a big difference next year. Your future self (and your team) will thank you.