Having made a decision and communicated it to the people who need to know,
it is important to prepare a plan to help manage the implementation of the
decision. Even for a relatively simple and straightforward decision, the rigour
of developing an implementation plan (however brief) helps to ensure that
important details are not overlooked and that everyone knows who is supposed
to be doing what.
Imagine that in our staffing rota example, the manager decided that they were
going to recruit a pool of casual staff who would be available during busy
periods. This is sufficiently complex to require a written implementation plan as
there are quite a few actions involved in doing this.
Without writing these actions into a plan, there is a danger that some important
steps are missed. For example, the people may be recruited by no plans made
for their induction or training and so this would clearly cause problems when
they start working in the department.
The plan also enables accountabilities to be clearly stated so that it’s clear
who is taking responsibility for each action. It is also a useful place to plan for
the target completion dates for each action – this is helpful to enable people
to prioritise the actions that they are working on. It is also sometimes useful
to include resources in the plan to outline what budget or other resources
are needed to the implementation of the plan. This enables the effective
management of the resources and actions needed to implement the decision.