Develop Plans and Schedules Content Guide

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Develop plans and schedules: Content guide

Contents

Develop plans and schedules: Content guide 1

Overview 2

Key terms 2

What are your work goals? 3

Goals and objectives 3

Some goal setting tips 5

Don’t forget resources and customer needs 6

Measuring performance at work 6

Job descriptions 7

Action plans and schedules 7

The planning process 8

Action plans 8

Schedules 9

Managing your time 10

Create a prioritised to-do list 10

Create a schedule 11

Distinguish between important and urgent tasks 12

Keep a time log 12

Avoid time wasters 13

Don’t procrastinate 13

When things go wrong 14

Problems and contingency plans 14

More resources 16

Sample answers to ‘My workplace’ questions 17

Overview

To achieve any type of goals, you need to create plans and schedules. This Content guide contains information and short activities to help you:

· set goals, objectives and targets

· use the six key planning steps

· prioritise work objectives and use schedules

· manage your time

· plan for difficulties.

Key terms

Contingency plan

An alternative or 'backup' plan that the team can follow if certain events occur, eg a supplier is not able to deliver ingredients due to a shortage or a strike.

Goals

What you want to achieve. A goal should be measurable by quantity or quality, have a time frame for completion, and be achievable.

Key performance indicator (KPI)

A measure used to gauge performance for a team or individual against agreed targets or goals.

Mission statement

An organisation's strategic plan usually includes a mission statement, which describes the organisation's values and how it does business. Example: 'Through the provision of excellent customer service, environmental awareness and community responsiveness, we will be the region of choice for families living in regional NSW.' Also see vision statement.

Objectives

Objectives are the smaller steps we need to take to achieve our goals.

Schedules

A list of activities, in step-by-step order, that indicates what is to be done, who is to do it and the time that has been allocated to complete it.

Stakeholder

Stakeholders are the individuals or organisations that are involved in, or may be affected by, the work that your team does. These may include managers, external customers, a project sponsor, internal customers, contractors, suppliers, project team, external clients, government agencies and the public.

Vision statement

An organisation's strategic plan usually includes a vision statement, which describes the values or beliefs of the organisation. Example: ‘Always looking for a better way to serve our community.’

What are your work goals?

Have you ever thought about what your organisational, work group and individual work goals are? If someone asked you, would you know what to say?

If you're leading a team of people, you need clear goals. And if you and your team are going to achieve those goals, you need to juggle people, equipment, money and your own time so that it all happens.

To achieve goals you need to develop plans.

As a team leader you will find yourself creating plans and schedules for yourself, for your team members, for delivery of supplies, for reports you have to provide, and for many other things.

Key planning points:

· A plan helps to identify actions we need to take to achieve goals.

· Good plans focus on issues that are important to individuals and to the organisation.

· Good planners consider resources, client needs and workgroup targets.

· Planning helps us anticipate and prepare for change.

Let's now look at the different levels where planning happens in an organisation.

Goals and objectives

Your organisation’s goals should guide the things you do now and what your work group aims for. Goals determine what needs to be done. If you have no clear goals you may not make the best use of your resources.

Work goals may be set at a number of different levels in the organisation:

· by senior management, for the whole organisation

· by middle and frontline management, for departments and teams

· by individuals, for themselves.

Vision

At the heart of every successful organisation is a strong set of values, a vision and a mission. This type of planning is often referred to as strategic planning as it ensures that all operational plans are aligned with the values of the organisation. Shared values provide a company identity and set a standard of work ethic.

A clear vision statement is one that sums up the values of the organisation. The vision statement tells everyone what we do. Here's an example of a vision statement for a Local Government Council:

Always looking for a better way to service our community.

Mission statement

The mission statement links to the vision and tells everyone how we will do it, so the Local Government Council's could look something like this:

Through the provision of excellent customer service, environmental awareness and community responsiveness, we will be the region of choice for families to live in metropolitan Western Australia.

Work team goal

These are for your department or your work team, and they include performance measures. They tell everyone what this group of people wants to achieve. Here are some examples:

Reduce warranty claims to 5 per 1,000 units sold within six months.

Design a video system for the 45xx series mobile phone within six months.

Achieve a customer recognition score of 70% in the June customer survey.

Reduce reportable accidents to three per year by May 2005.

Provide frontline management training to all supervisors within the next year.

Produce 150 bikes per month with nil defects.

Increase our customer base by 10% by February 2006.

Individual goal

This is how you or an individual team member will 'do your bit' to achieve your work team's goal. Here is an example for the team goal 'Reduce warranty claims to 5 per 1,000 units sold within six months':

I will prepare a report on reasons for warranty claims with the current model, and give this to the engineering team by 20 September.

Objectives

Objectives are shorter term than goals. People often use them to set out the steps or actions that they will take to achieve their goals. See the section on action plans below. You will see how actions plans are basically a list of objectives that work towards a particular a goal.

Objectives often describe how we will reach our goals. Here are some examples of objectives to meet the individual goal listed above:

Use spreadsheet software to analyse warranty claims data — within five working days.
Obtain report template and prepare draft report — within eight working days.
Consult sales managers and engineers on draft report and include their feedback — within 15 working days.
Prepare final report and present to engineering team — within 20 working days.

My workplace

1. Think of one or two important work goals (for your work team or for you), then list the objectives or targets for those goals.

Answer:

Some goal setting tips

Goals and objective are more helpful to everyone if they are clear and concise. A popular way to remember what should be in your goals and objectives is to use the SMARTT method — it stands for:

· Specific and concise (the goal is not long-winded, people can understand it)

· Measurable (there's a way of knowing whether or not we've achieved the goal)

· Achievable (the goal is do-able, it's possible with the resources we have available)

· Related (to the overall department and organisational goals, the goal is part of a bigger picture)

· Time-framed (we know when the end-date for the goal is)

· Trackable (we can easily monitor how we're going — daily, weekly or monthly)

Don’t forget resources and customer needs

Work teams don’t operate in isolation. There are a range of people who may have an interest in the work outcomes of your team. They are called stakeholders. When setting goals and planning, you need to be aware of their needs and requirements. They may be internal or external stakeholders and may depend on the outputs of your team.

To reach your team goals and targets, you also need to consider the resources that are available. The types of resources you need to consider are:

· Human resources — the people you will need to carry out the tasks. Consider their availability and their capacity to perform the tasks.

· Financial resources — the cost of the activities that you and your team need to undertake to achieve your goals. You’ll need to develop a budget.

· Physical resources — the materials and space that is required for your team to achieve the goals. They may be raw materials or the outputs of other teams in your organisation.

· Technical resources — the machinery and technology you’ll need to achieve your goals.

Team objectives, priorities and available resources will need to be negotiated.

Measuring performance at work

How can we measure or evaluate our performance at work? Many workplaces develop measures for teams and for individual employees. They may be called things like:

· key performance indicators (KPIs)

· performance standards

· targets

· objectives.

Whatever your organisation calls them, they are agreed measures that tell everyone whether the team and the individual are performing to the standard that’s needed. A key performance indicators or a performance standard must clearly state:

· the quantity — ‘…at a defect rate of no more than 2%’

· the quality — ‘…patients must be treated with respect and dignity’

of the work to be done.

Job descriptions

Most organisations use job descriptions. These are an outline of the roles and responsibilities of the employees in the organisation, and you can use them to help define the performance measures for yourself, your whole team and each individual in your team.

Job descriptions often start with a statement of the ‘job purpose’. This acts as a personal vision or mission statement. For example, for a retail store supervisor a job purpose may be 'to achieve or exceed sales and other targets to ensure the satisfaction of customers, staff and self'.

If you wanted to find out exactly what key result areas and key performance indicators applied to your role you could look at your job description.

My workplace

2. Are there agreed performance measures for your job, or for your team? If not, try to think of what they might be. Can you see the connection between these and your job description?

Answer:

Action plans and schedules

Here’s an example of a simple work plan that one team leader created:

What is to be done (target)? / When is it to be done (target date)? / Where will it be done? / How will it be done (the tasks involved, stages/key points)? / Who will do it?
Lay new carpet / Friday 1pm / Acme Head Office / Relocate furniture
Remove old carpet
Prepare floor/lay underlay
Lay carpet
Return furniture / Bob and Jenny

The planning process

Think about the process that this team would have used to create this plan. They would have followed these steps.

Set your goals and objectives — what do you want to achieve?
Think about how it will happen — What? Who? When? Why? Where? And How?
Sequence the activities — in the order they should occur.
Communicate your plan — involve everyone who will be affected.
Implement your plan — carry out the activities/tasks required to achieve your goals.
Check progress — monitor and review your plan as you need to.

Action plans

An action plan is a simple tool that will help you to work out:

· what tasks need to be done to achieve a goal

· who does each task

· when they do it.

By developing an action plan you focus on what you want to achieve. You will also need to prioritise or determine in what order tasks will be done, when each task will be completed, how each task will be done, and how its achievement will be measured.

Here’s an example of an action plan for a team:

Goal: To launch a new product in stores.

Item no / Action / Who / By when / Progress
1 / Prepare the sales targets / Jenny / 30 Aug
2 / Prepare the staffing plan / Dennis / 15 Sept
Recruit new staff / Dennis / 15 Oct
3 / Provide induction and product training / Ian / 30 Oct

Schedules

Sometimes you will need a more detailed schedule than a simple action plan, especially if you have several people working on the job.

A schedule shows you:

· when each task begins and ends

· who is doing it

· how much time (actual work) is allocated for the task (or the person who is doing it).

A sample schedule for a work team:

If this was a schedule for your work team, how will it help you?

· It will prevent people and equipment being idle in one area while things are busy in another. Look at the example above. It shows us that if Dennis needs more help with the staffing and recruitment tasks, Ian may be available to help out.

· It will help to make sure that when people are ready to start their task, another task that needs to happen first has been completed. Look at the example again — how could Ian train the new staff if Dennis has not recruited them?