Division of Strategy and Innovation

Fulton County Schools

Initiative Blueprint Guide

Strategic Plan Alignment / Simply input the Initiative as it is written in the Strategic Plan and list action steps associated with the initiative.
A reference guide for the Strategic Plan Initiatives and Key Action Steps can be found on the Strategic Initiative Management SharePoint site. You may confirm your access under “Team Sites” in the Employee Portal.
Goals and Outcomes / Discuss with your Executive Sponsor the high-level, directional goal or desired outcome of the work. This would describe an end state different from the current environment, impact on schools, students, employees, or departments.
Initiative Overview / Provide a brief narrative of the work, why it was determined to be part of the strategic plan, and how this outcome advances the stated goals of the strategic plan.
Measurable Goals / Determine measurable SMART goals for the initiative. SMART goals are defined as (S)pecific, (M)easurable, (A)ctionable, (R)elevant, and (T)imebound.
Roles and Responsibilities / Work with your Executive Sponsor to determine individuals that will form your work team. The Executive Sponsor should be your Cabinet member as identified and highlighted in the Phase 2 Initiatives document received during your overview. This is different from being on a committee or an advisory group. The outcomes of this initiative should become part of these individuals’ individual performance plans.
Advisory Committee
(not required) / You may consider a small group to bounce ideas off or review deliverables prior to more public consumption. This is optional, though could be helpful to ensure the work you are completing will ultimately meet expectations of end users.
Stakeholder Map / List potential end users or groups most likely impacted by the work included in your initiative. Consider what the impact would be for each group and list here.
Initiative Scope / This page creates an opportunity to align on what is in-scope, or what you agree with your Executive Sponsor is either too large or out of your span of control in the initiative.
Initiative Milestones / For each action item (letter bullet) under your initiative, build milestones and list responsibilities for the work, including dates for starting and completing items associated with this milestone. Creating reasonable and achievable milestones is especially important as this is how we will track progress toward completion of all the strategic plan work. Keep in mind that this is an initial work-plan that should be revisited and adjusted as part of the SIM process and as conditions change.
Interdependencies / Interdependencies are those work groups or individuals that may be impacted by the proposed initiative work, including shared resources or work that depends on the outcome of other adjacent work teams. These interdependencies could be resources, critical system dates, or other strategic plan initiatives. List the likely impact of each interdependency which can be used later to prioritize mitigation steps.
Assumptions / You are beginning the work of this initiative under an assumed set of circumstances that you and your Executive Sponsor agree to up front. List these and describe how this impacts the work.
Risk Assessment / Consider how stable this set of assumptions you are working under for the initiative may be, and what could shift these assumptions in ways that adversely affect your ability to deliver the initiative on-time. List these here and brainstorm pro-active interventions or plans to address these situations.
Budget Review / Because the amounts of influence individual initiative owners currently have regarding budget decisions at this time, we originally did not require you to fill out this page. It may be helpful to have a conversation with your Executive Sponsor about budget impacts you anticipate and build a plan to address them in an upcoming Annual Plan cycle. It is strongly encouraged and appropriate to list those assumptions or estimates here.
Formal Approval / Obtain approval of your Blueprint, keeping in mind plans often change and require frequent revisiting to ensure alignment and to address changing conditions. Ideally, this tacit approval should be obtained prior to the first SIM review. Time is spent in each session to review material changes to existing Blueprints.
Post-Initiative Evaluation / Evaluation Reports will be done as initiatives meet stated objectives and are formally marked as ‘complete.’ A process to evaluate the outcomes of initiatives balanced against original goals and objectives is currently being developed and will be ready to pilot with the first completed Phase I initiatives sometime in 2013. This will be completed by the Project Management Office and the Office of Accountability. Specific measures of success will be developed as part of the initiative’s transition to “on-going work” once stated deliverables of this Blueprint have been achieved.