In today's article we clarify what a work plan is, what it is for and, most importantly, how you can easily create one that is tailored to the size and objectives of your company. It's as interesting as it sounds, so go for it, read on...
If you type into your favourite Internet search engine the key words “what is a work plan” you will find hundreds of different results that give long explanations for something that, believe us, is extremely simple: is an outline, a roadmap that helps us to get to a certain place by meeting a series of milestones.
It is not complicated to draw up such a plan as long as we are clear about it:
A work plan not only serves to optimise the use of your financial, technical or human resources to the maximum, also fulfils other important functions, such as the following:
Now that we know what a work plan is and what it is for, it is time to write down the basic steps that will help you to create a really effective work plan that does not become a dead letter.
Following on from our simile “roadmap-roadmap”, We could say that there are two basic points: the beginning and the end In other words, where we have come from and where we want to go, what is the objective of the plan.
Since you know where you are starting from - from here and now - what remains to be written down is “where you are going”: what is your destination? the goal you want to achieve with that plan.
It can be the completion of a civil work, the creation of a software programme, the launch of a new product, the creation of an internal communication department... Whatever it is, but you must write it down.
In a long plan, it is essential to write down the stops on your journey or, in other words, the milestones that you will have to meet little by little in order to not exhaust your resources in the first phase of a long journey.
These milestones are the small goals you have to achieve in order to reach the final objective of your plan. For example, if your goal is to create an internal communication department, a first milestone could be to select the person in your company who will be in charge of leading this new department.
A second milestone would be to describe the resources that the new department will need (office space, computers, etc.), wage costs, etc.). A third milestone could be on effective recruitment of candidates… And so on until you reach the final goal.
The third essential step in an effective and efficient work plan is to be realistic and write down the resources you are going to allocate to achieve each milestone in the previous step. These resources can be of all kinds: financial, technical, training, informative...
The fourth and final step of our sample work plan is as important as the previous ones: identifying barriers that you will encounter on your long road to the goal you have set for yourself. In this case try to be as pessimistic as possible and note down every last difficulty you think may arise, from lack of funding to administrative delays, labour disputes, etc..
