transformation of a business plan into an action plan

How to Write and Develop an Action Plan for Your Small Business

6 min. read

Updated October 29, 2023

Taking action at the appropriate time is critical to turning your visions into a viable reality. However, doing so without a proper strategy can be a recipe for disaster. 

A well-designed and concrete action plan that weighs all the benefits and possible challenges is the key to executing your vision successfully. Furthermore, it makes tracking progress easier, which in turn helps you attain your goals. 

Whether it’s a business, personal, or career goal you are going after, the right action plan can be your roadmap to success. A comprehensive plan details all the information regarding your objectives and projects, such as the resources required, the complexity level of tasks, etc.

Let’s figure out how you can build one to achieve your goals successfully and efficiently.

• What is an action plan and why is it important?

An action plan serves as a trajectory for the tasks or steps you need to accomplish to reach your goals and objectives. It is a crucial part of your strategic process that helps you improve teamwork planning significantly. Also, a proper action plan allows you to manage projects efficiently.

You have all the essential information in a centralized location that your team can access, making it easier for everybody to monitor progress and plan things successfully. As your company grows and circumstances change, you can revisit and make modifications to meet your latest requirements.

Planning of action items helps you prepare for any obstacles ahead. You’re your teams on track while ensuring impactful results. Furthermore, it also boosts your productivity and keeps everybody focused on urgent tasks.  

Here are some of the reasons why an action plan is vital for you:

• It gives you a clear sense of direction by highlighting precisely the steps you need to take when you need to take that and what it will help you accomplish 
• Having your objectives and goals on paper with structured steps keeps the team members motivated and dedicated throughout the project
• You can gauge your and member’s progress and contribution toward the collective goals
• You can turn your visions into reality, increase accountability and efficiency within your organization

How to create an effective action plan 

When it comes to creating an action plan, various practical methods and tools can help you develop a robust action program. Begin by following this straightforward 7-step strategy.

Following these steps for structuring your action plan incidentally also acts as a brilliant roadmap for your idea’s overall presentation and can effectively create a clear goal.

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1. Define your scope

It is essential to define your scope, create a roadmap, and align it with your strategic planning . Make sure your actions guide you toward company goals. Start by gauging how your team members can contribute and help you achieve your objectives.

If you don’t have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve, it might be challenging for you to plan a new initiative. Defining your current status and where you see your company helps you analyze the situation, explore potential solutions and implement strategies successfully.

2. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals

S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) objectives or goals is a method of objective setting that enables employees and managers to set, monitor, and achieve their long-term and short-term goals. This approach brings tractability and structure together.

Once you map out your plan, scope, and aim to accomplish, the next step requires you to set well-defined goals and measurable tools. Create a template to highlight all the tasks that your team needs to perform and deadlines.

It is vital to make sure that your entire team is on the same page, involved in the process, and has access to the document. This way, the projects become manageable while also boosting team productivity.

Furthermore, ensure that the tasks are attainable. If you have more complex tasks, it’s essential to break them down into manageable parts for easy execution. 

3. Visualize your plan

Once you plan on the action items, prioritize tasks, and set milestones, the next step is creating a visual representation of your action plan. This visualization helps you engage your team and allow everyone to follow through to carry out activities.

A graphical presentation also makes it easier to get a bird’s eye view of your project. This way, you can identify your objectives and tasks that you weren’t able to execute or reach, allowing you to prioritize them to accomplish them.

You can elaborate your action plan with the help of a concept map that can help you explicitly communicate all the essential elements and information — task owners, tasks owners, resources, goals, objectives, deadlines, etc. Also, make sure the document is easily accessible to all. 

Additionally, you can also leverage online visual collaboration platforms to help you seamlessly visualize and structure your simple and complex concepts.

4. Prioritize your tasks

It is imperative to align all your activities with specific goals and assign them to relevant team members. When you list and prioritize all your tasks, it helps keep track of your projects’ status, progress, and completion. 

You could also structure your task list by importance. This way, everyone knows what needs to be done first to meet your deadlines effectively while ensuring that your employees can manage those tasks. That way, your team will also know their responsibilities and tasks to get done and engage them with a clear vision.

5. Set milestones 

Milestones are the objectives that your team aims to achieve to keep a specific project progressing at a steady pace. Your work will have a lot smoother flow when everybody is clear with goals.

When you set milestones , it serves as mini-goals that help you achieve your central goal towards the end. Adding milestones to your action plan is crucial to give your team members something to look forward to and encourage them to stay motivated throughout.

6. Identify your resources

Before starting your project, it is imperative to ensure that you have the critical resources to complete the tasks successfully. And if you don’t have adequate resources, devise a strategy to leverage what you have effectively. Include all the essential components such as the number of projects, budget, timelines, etc., to make sure you don’t miss out on vital aspects.

Knowing what you have to work with will ensure that any tasks or projects you set out to accomplish have a better chance of succeeding. If you don’t have enough cash, a large enough team, or even enough time to manage every project, you’ll soon find yourself struggling to meet milestones and deadlines.

7. Monitor, gauge, and update

It is pivotal to allocate time and resources to evaluate your projects’ and teams’ progress. Make sure you conduct frequent follow-ups with team members to see if everybody is on track. 

For this reason, you need to elaborate on the follow-up and assessment of teams in your action plan. This will help you implement the strategies that work well and eradicate the ineffective ones.

• A guide to reaching your goals

An action plan is an indispensable tool that helps you guide your way to realizing your goals. It turns your visualization into actionable steps and milestones. 

From larger departments in an organization to individual employees, an action plan is a defined methodology that helps you outline your activities, tasks, resources, budget, objectives, etc. This, in turn, allows you to achieve desired outcomes.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

JT Ripton is a business consultant and a freelance writer out of Tampa. JT has written for companies like T-Mobile and others.

Table of Contents

• How to create an effective action plan 

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Business transformation guide: Strategy, process, and examples

I’m probably giving away my age here, but do you remember the video cassette? My parents taught me how to use our video player when I was 2 years old. This meant that I could toddle downstairs at 6 a.m. and pick out my favorite video ( Dumbo ) unaided, giving them an extra hour of sleep. Smart parenting!

Never heard of a video cassette? Well, you don’t need to be that old to have never had one in your house. Technology and products are evolving faster than ever, and so are the businesses that make them. In fact, businesses today need to transform to survive.

In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about business transformation, including its definition, goals, and objectives. We’ll also share tips to make your business transformation successful, including using a roadmap, developing a communication plan, managing risk, defining success metrics, and more.

What is business transformation?

Business transformation refers to the process of fundamentally changing the way a company operates to achieve a new level of growth, efficiency, and competitiveness. It usually involves making significant changes to an organization’s processes, culture, and technology to improve its performance, adapt to new market trends, and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

Businesses can achieve a competitive advantage by creating a more agile, innovative, and customer-centric organization. Business transformation can help organizations reduce costs, improve efficiency, enhance the customer experience, and drive revenue growth.

Business transformation examples

Before embarking on a business transformation journey, it’s essential to define the goals and objectives that the organization aims to achieve. These goals should align with the company’s overall mission , vision , and strategy .

If you’ve never heard of a video cassette, you may not have heard of Blockbuster. Back in the day, Blockbuster was a chain of stores where you could go to rent a movie. Yes, go — as in physically visit the shop.

Going to Blockbuster was such a treat! With stacks of shelves containing movie after movie, you could choose one and watch it all weekend. However, if you returned your video late, you’d be hit with a hefty fine.

With the advent of the internet, the movie rental industry faced serious disruption due to the emergence of streaming platforms. Along came Netflix, and Blockbuster’s business model was suddenly antiquated. It did not adapt and, as a result, Blockbuster is resigned to the history books.

On the other hand, Microsoft demonstrates what is possible with a business transformation. There was a time when people questioned Microsoft’s future. However, under CEO Satya Nadella’s leadership, the longtime tech giant shifted from a product-focused company to a cloud-first, mobile-first one. By transforming its business model, culture, and technology to focus on cloud-based services such as Azure, Office 365, and Dynamics 365, Microsoft managed to increase its revenue from cloud services and become a leading player in the cloud market.

Some common goals of business transformation include improving operational efficiency, enhancing the customer experience, entering new markets, launching new products or services, and reducing costs. For Microsoft, it was all of these things and more.

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Developing your business transformation strategy

Identifying the areas of the business that require transformation is critical to the success of the initiative.

First, you need to start with your goal. Referencing our example from the previous section, Microsoft needed to pivot most of its product offerings and revive the culture of the firm to support this new direction.

Next, conduct a comprehensive assessment of the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) to see how they align with the goals of the transformation. Some common areas that may need transformation include the organization’s culture, processes, technology, customer experience, product or service offerings, and talent management.

Conducting a business transformation, particularly on a scale similar to that of Microsoft’s transformation, is a daunting task. It is an entire system overhaul, whether it is in a few areas of the business or many. The goals are often lofty and transformative — they need to be to help the business stay competitive, relevant and serve their customer needs as their needs evolve.

To guide this transformation, you need to balance the need to inspire and lead vast and complex change with the need to manage potential risks and unforeseen consequences. Due to complexity of the endeavor, it will be impossible to predict everything that may happen.

What are the 8 phases of business transformation?

Every business transformation process will vary depending on these risks, as well as the unique goals, needs, and deficiencies of the organization and its business units. However, these eight phases are a good place to start:

• Define success metrics
• Build a transformation roadmap
• Build a cross-functional team
• Develop a clear communication plan
• Identify and manage risks
• Leverage technology and data
• Continuously monitor progress and making adjustments
• Manage change and resistance

1. Define success metrics

What does success look like? Articulating this in a measurable way allows you to be more specific when it comes to monitoring progress.

Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that are aligned with the transformation goals and objectives. KPIs can include metrics such as revenue growth, or cost reductions.

2. Build a transformation roadmap

When conducting business transformation activities, the vision of the future differs greatly from the current state of the company. It can be hard for people to understand how they are to arrive at point B. That’s where a roadmap comes in.

A business transformation roadmap helps communicate the steps required to achieve your transformation goals and objectives. This document may include rough timelines, milestones, and key deliverables.

The roadmap could also be accompanied with other documents that identify the resources required for the initiative, such as budget, personnel, and technology.

3. Build a cross-functional team

One of the most crucial aspects of a successful business transformation is building a cross-functional team . Because a business transformation impacts so many areas of the business, it requires a wide range skill sets to design and implement the new ways of working.

The team should consist of individuals from various departments within the organization who can provide diverse perspectives and skillsets. It’s important to recruit individuals who are not only experts in their respective fields but also possess strong communication and collaboration skills. They should be able to work together toward a common goal and willing to learn and adapt to new ideas and approaches.

4. Develop a clear communication plan

Research has shown that effective communication is critical to the success of any transformation initiative.

Change can be both exciting and unsettling. You should develop a clear communication plan that outlines the key messages, stakeholders, channels, and frequency of communication. The communication plan should also include a feedback mechanism to gather input and address any concerns or issues.

5. Identify and manage risks

Business transformation initiatives are often associated with significant risks, such as cost overruns, delays, and resistance to change.

Identify and manage these risks by conducting a comprehensive risk assessment, developing risk mitigation strategies, and monitoring risks throughout the transformation process.

6. Leverage technology and data

Technology and data are essential components of a successful business transformation. You need to embrace new technologies and tools to streamline their operations, improve efficiency and enhance their customer experience.

Data analytics plays a critical role in providing valuable insights into customer behavior, market trends, and internal processes. It’s essential to have a robust technology infrastructure that supports data-driven decision-making and enables automation of routine tasks.

7. Continuously monitor progress and make adjustments

Business transformation is an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and evaluation. This is where the key performance indicators (KPIs) established at the start to measure the success of the transformation journey come into play.

It’s essential to have a feedback mechanism in place to gather insights from employees, customers, and stakeholders. Based on the feedback and KPIs, make adjustments to ensure that the transformation journey stays on track and achieves the desired outcomes.

8. Manage change and resistance

Change can be challenging, and resistance to change is a common hurdle when embarking on a business transformation journey. It’s essential to have a change management plan in place that addresses the concerns of employees and stakeholders.

As we’ve discussed, communication is key, and leaders must ensure that employees are aware of the changes, the reasons for the changes, and how they will be affected. It’s also crucial to involve employees in the transformation process and provide training and support to help them adapt to new processes and technologies.

Business transformation is a complex and challenging process that requires careful planning, execution, and monitoring. Your ability to build a cross-functional team, leverage technology and data, manage change and resistance, and continuously monitor progress determine the success of a business transformation journey.

By embracing these factors and investing in a holistic transformation approach, you can help your company unlock new opportunities, increase efficiency, and stay competitive in today’s ever-changing business landscape. Be the next Microsoft, not the next Blockbuster.

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• Create an action plan that drives resul ...

Create an action plan that drives results

An action plan outlines precisely how you’re planning to accomplish your goals. It’s the perfect way to approach goals systematically and keep your team on target. In this article, we will cover how to create an action plan in six steps and how to implement it successfully. Plus, learn more about the differences between action plans, project plans, and to-do lists.

It can feel good to make goals. After all, you’re defining what you want to accomplish. But goals won’t do much without clear action steps. ​​An action plan is a popular project management technique that lists your action steps so you know exactly how you’re going to accomplish your goals. 

We’re going to show you how to create this clear roadmap step by step and other tools you should utilize to get the most out of your action plan. Let’s dive in.

What is an action plan?

An action plan is a list of tasks or steps you need to complete to achieve your goals. An effective action plan works like a management plan for your company’s initiatives, outlining the steps you need to take to make these larger goals a success. Once you go through the goal-setting process, create an action plan with specific tasks and timeframes to reach each goal. 

Who needs an action plan?

An action plan is useful for anyone who needs a step-by-step planning process. When you create an action plan, you detail exactly what actions you'll take to accomplish your project goals. These plans can help you organize your to-dos and ensure you have the necessary information and resources to accomplish your goals.

But you can create action plans for more than just strategic planning. Use this tool to reach any specific goals in a systematic way. Try setting up:

Business action plan

Marketing action plan

Corrective action plan

Sales action plan

Project action plan

Personal development action plan

Regardless of the type of action plan you create, make sure you create it in task management software . That way, you can easily share action items and timelines with your team to track progress. Instead of manual status updates and unclear deliverables, your team has one central source of truth for everything they need to do in order to hit their goals. 

Now let’s get into how you can create an action plan that increases your team’s efficiency and accountability.

6 steps to create an action plan

Step 1: set a smart goal.

When it comes to setting goals, clarity is the single most important quality. With the SMART goal method, your goal is clearly defined and attainable. Set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound goals to benefit from this tactic.

For example, your goal could be to deliver your current project (measurable) in four months (time-bound) without overspending (specific). Assuming this goal is both achievable and realistic based on your available resources, it’s a great SMART goal to set for yourself.

Step 2: Identify tasks

Now that your goal is clearly defined and written down, you’ll want to identify the steps you have to take to reach it. Identify all of the tasks that you and your team need to complete to reach milestones and, eventually, the main objective.

Here are a few action plan examples with tasks for different kinds of goals:

Goal: Expand team from seven to nine team members by June.

Meet with Human Resources to discuss the recruitment campaign.

Create a template project to track candidates.

Schedule three interviews per week.

Goal: Select and onboard new work management software to the entire company by the end of Q2.

Apply for the budget.

Create a roll-out plan for Q2.

Schedule training for team members.

Goal: Host 5k charity run in May to raise $15,000 for the local food bank.

Find volunteers and determine responsibilities

Prepare marketing materials and PR plans

Secure sponsors

Step 3: Allocate resources

Once you’ve outlined all of your tasks, you can allocate resources like team members, project budget, or necessary equipment. Whether it’s assigning team members to certain tasks, applying for a budget, or gathering helpful tools—now is the time to plan and prepare.

Sometimes, you can’t allocate all of your resources before you put your action plan in motion. Perhaps you have to apply for funding first or need executive approval before you can move on with a task. In that case, make the resource an action item in your plan so you can take care of it later.

Step 4: Prioritize tasks

When your team is clear on their priorities, they know what work to do first and what work they can reschedule if necessary. No action plan is set in stone, so the best way to empower your team is to let them know what tasks have a high priority and which ones are a bit more flexible.

To make this clear, sort all of your action items by priority and sequence:

Priority: Important and less important tasks.

Sequence: Order in which tasks have to be completed so others can start.

When you’re organizing and prioritizing your action items , you’ll notice that some action items are dependent on others. In other words, one task can’t begin until the previous task is completed. Highlight these dependencies and factor the sequence into your prioritization. This reduces bottlenecks , removing obstacles that would make a less important action item delay a high-priority item.  

Step 5: Set deadlines and milestones

When your team knows what they're working towards, they have the context to effectively prioritize work and the motivation to get great work done. Team members tend to be more motivated when they directly understand how their work is contributing to larger goals.

To engage your teammates from the get go, assign deadlines to all action items and define milestones . Milestones mark specific points along your project timeline that identify when activities have been completed or when a new phase starts

Create a timeline or Gantt chart to get a better overview of your prioritized tasks, milestones, and deadlines. Your timeline also serves as a visual way to track the start and end dates of every task in your action plan. You can use it as a baseline to make sure your team stays on track.

Step 6: Monitor and revise your action plan

Your ability to stay on top of and adapt to changes is what makes you a great project manager. It’s crucial that you monitor your team’s progress and revise the plan when necessary.

Luckily, your action plan isn’t set in stone. The best way to track potentially changing priorities or deadlines is to use a dynamic tool like a work management software . That way, you can update to-dos and dependencies in real time, keep your team on the same page, and your action plan moving.

Action plan vs. plan B vs. project plan vs. to-do list

So how exactly does an action plan differ from all these other plans and lists? To clear this up once and for all, we’re going to explain what these plans are and when to use which plan to maximize your team’s efforts.

Action plan vs. plan B

You may have heard the terms action plan and plan B used interchangeably. But in fact, an action plan and plan B are two completely different types of plans. Here’s how to tell them apart:

Your action plan outlines actions in much detail so you and your team know exactly what steps to take to reach your goal.

A plan B is a secondary action plan, an alternative strategy, that your team can apply if your original plan fails. Whether that’s because of an internal issue or an external factor—having a plan B is a great way to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

Action plan vs. project plan

A project plan is a bit more complicated than an action plan. Project plans are blueprints of the key elements your team needs to accomplish to successfully achieve your project goals. A project plan includes seven elements:

Goals and project objectives

Success metrics

Stakeholders and roles

Scope and budget

Milestones and deliverables

Timeline and schedule

Communication plan

Once you’ve created a project plan, use an action plan to outline and document how your team will execute your tasks and hit your goals. This will ensure that everyone on your team knows what their responsibilities are and what to get done by when.

Action plan vs. to-do list

A to-do list is typically used to write down single tasks that don’t necessarily lead to one common goal. To-do lists can change daily and are much less organized than action plans. An action plan will follow specific steps and include tasks that all lead to the completion of a common goal.

How to implement your action plan successfully

You know how to create an action plan, but in order to implement it successfully, you need to use the right tools and use them correctly. Here are our top five tips to ensure your action plan is effective:

Use task management software

Streamline your action plan by keeping all of your tasks and timelines in one central source of truth. Task management software, like Asana , is perfect for your action plan because it allows you to keep track of pending tasks, declare task ownership, assign dependencies, and connect with your team in real time or asynchronously .

Use or create templates

Create or use a template that lists all the action items with notes, status, priority, and ownership. When you create a template that fits your project type, you can reuse it time and time again.

Set up real-time alerts and assign dependencies

Make sure all action items are time-bound and that you assign dependencies. That way, your team can react when an item is ready for them and easily track what other items depend on theirs. 

Check action items off as you complete them

When action items are completed, check them off! Make sure it’s visible to everyone and happens in real time so the person responsible for the next action item can start their work as soon as possible.

Discuss late or pending tasks

If you run into issues or delays, talk to your team to uncover potential bottlenecks and find solutions that keep the action plan on track. You can add notes directly into your action plan or set up calls to discuss more complex issues.

Ready, set, action plan

Like Benjamin Franklin once said: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Creating an action plan helps you stay focused, on track, and brings your goals to life.

Plan to succeed with a structured action plan and helpful tools like Asana’s task management software. Connect and align with your team in a central source of truth while staying flexible enough to revise your action plan when necessary.

Related resources

What are objectives and key results (OKRs)?

Fix these common onboarding challenges to boost productivity

How Asana uses work management to optimize resource planning

How Asana uses work management for organizational planning

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What is an Action Plan & How to Write One [With Examples]

By Danesh Ramuthi , Oct 26, 2023

An action plan is a meticulously structured strategy that pinpoints specific steps, tasks and resources vital to turning a goal into reality. It is extremely useful in any project management. 

Crafting an action plan is like plotting a route for a cross-country journey. It’s the strategic map that outlines every step, decision and pitstop needed to reach your ultimate destination.

With a well-thought-out action plan, you’re not just shooting in the dark; you’re making informed, purposeful strides towards your goals. Dive deep with our guide and witness real-world examples that will inspire and guide you.

Need a tool to kickstart your planning? Try out the Venngage business plan maker and explore their extensive collection of action plan templates .

Click to jump ahead: 

What is the purpose of an action plan?

When to develop an action plan, 7 components of a actions plan, 15 action plan examples.

• How to Write an action plan?

Final thoughts

An action plan serves as a strategic tool designed to outline specific steps, tasks and goals necessary to achieve a particular objective.

Its primary purpose is to provide a clear roadmap and direction for individuals, teams or organizations to follow in order to efficiently and effectively accomplish their goals. 

Action plans break down complex projects into manageable, actionable components, making it easier to track progress and stay on course.

Moreover, action plans play a crucial role in fostering accountability and coordination among team members. By assigning responsibilities and deadlines for each task or milestone, they ensure that everyone involved is aware of their roles and the overall timeline, reducing confusion and enhancing teamwork. 

Additionally, action plans help in resource allocation, budgeting and risk management by enabling stakeholders to identify potential challenges and plan for contingencies. 

Overall, the purpose of an action plan is to transform abstract goals into concrete actions, making them more achievable and measurable while ensuring that the resources and efforts are aligned with the desired outcomes.

Developing an action plan is crucial when you’re looking to achieve a specific goal or outcome. Here are instances when you should consider developing an action plan:

• Start of an organization : Ideally, an action plan should be developed within the first six months to one year of the start of an organization. This initial plan lays the groundwork for the future direction and growth of the entity.
• Project initiation : At the start of any project, an action plan helps to clearly define the tasks, responsibilities, and timelines.
• Goal setting : Whenever you or your organization sets a new goal. Action plans transform these goals from abstract ideas into concrete steps.
• Strategic planning : For long-term visions and missions, action plans break down the journey into manageable pieces, each with its timeline and responsible parties.
• Performance improvement : If there are areas where performance is lacking, whether it’s personal or organizational, an action plan can outline the steps needed to elevate performance.

An action plan is a detailed outline that breaks down the steps necessary to achieve a specific goal. Here are the typical components of an action plan.

1. Objective or Goal

The cornerstone of your action plan is the objective or goal. This should be a clear and concise statement outlining the desired outcome or result. Having a well-defined objective provides a direction and purpose to the entire plan, ensuring all tasks and actions are aligned towards achieving this singular aim.

2. Tasks or Actions

Once the objective is set, the next step is to list down the specific tasks or actions required to achieve this goal. These tasks should be broken down into detailed steps, ensuring no essential activity is overlooked. The granularity of these tasks can vary based on the complexity of the goal.

3. Set deadline

For each task or action, set a realistic and achievable deadline. This timeline ensures that the plan stays on track and that momentum is maintained throughout the execution. It also allows for monitoring progress and identifying potential delays early.

4. Resources needed to complete the project

It’s crucial to recognize and list the resources you’ll need to complete the tasks. This can encompass financial resources, human resources, equipment, technological tools or any other assets. Identifying these early ensures that there are no bottlenecks during execution due to a lack of necessary resources.

5. Person responsible

Assign a person or a team for each task. This designation ensures accountability and clarity. When individuals are aware of their responsibilities, it reduces overlap, confusion and ensures that every task has someone overseeing its completion.

6. Potential barriers or challenges

Every plan will face challenges. By anticipating potential barriers or obstacles, you can be better prepared to address them. This proactive approach ensures smoother execution and less reactionary problem-solving.

7. Measurement of key performance indicators (KPIs)

Determine how you’ll measure the success of each task or the plan overall. KPIs are tangible metrics that allow you to gauge progress and determine whether you’re moving closer to your goals and objectives. They offer a quantifiable means to evaluate success.

Action plans serve as blueprints, guiding the steps and resources needed to achieve a specific goal. 

They come in various formats, tailored to different scenarios and objectives. Here, we present a range of action plan examples that cater to diverse purposes and situations. 

From business strategies to simple task lists, these examples illustrate the versatility and importance of well-structured planning.

Business action plan example

A business action plan is essentially a strategy roadmap, meticulously tailored for realizing broader business objectives. By crafting a solid action plan, businesses can channel their resources, manpower and strategies in a direction that harmonizes with their larger vision.

Key to this plan is the identification and alignment of steps that resonate with the company’s comprehensive strategy, ambitions of growth and aspirations for operational enhancements. 

While this might entail a myriad of specific steps based on unique business goals, some common elements include setting clear key performance indicators (KPIs), undertaking a thorough SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis to grasp the current business landscape and establishing a timeline to keep track of progress.

Furthermore, allocating responsibilities to team members or individuals ensures that every aspect of the strategy has a dedicated focus. Budgeting, essential to the success of the action plan, ensures that every initiative is financially viable and sustainable. 

Regular reviews and iterations based on feedback and changing market dynamics keep the action plan agile and relevant.

Related: 5 Steps to Create an Actionable Employee Development Plan [with Templates & Examples]

Company action plan example

A comprehensive company action plan serves as the strategic linchpin, ensuring a coherent and coordinated approach to realizing organizational goals. Central to this plan is the incorporation of rigorous market research and analysis, which provides insights into consumer behaviors, market trends and potential opportunities. 

Equally vital is the focus on product development and procurement, ensuring that the offerings align with market demands and stand out in terms of quality and relevance. 

Alongside, adept legal and financial management safeguards the company’s interests, ensuring compliance with regulations and prudent fiscal oversight.

Moreover, the essence of any successful company action plan lies in its sales and marketing strategies. These define how the products or services are positioned and promoted in the market, ensuring visibility and engagement with the target audience. 

However, while acquisition is crucial, retention plays an equally significant role. Hence, impeccable customer service and nurturing relationships become indispensable components, fostering loyalty and ensuring that clients remain ambassadors for the brand long after the initial transaction.

Related: 30+ Project Plan Examples to Visualize Your Strategy (2023)

Sales action plan example

A well-structured sales action plan serves as the backbone for systematic and efficient progress. Central to this plan is the identification and utilization of the most effective sales channels, whether they are direct, online or through third-party avenues. 

Clarity on the products and services on offer, combined with their unique selling propositions, facilitates tailored and resonant sales pitches. 

Budget considerations ensure that resources are judiciously allocated, balancing the act between expenditures and potential returns. This financial prudence is complemented by setting realistic sales projections, which act as both a motivational target and a yardstick for success.

Timelines, or proposed deadlines, infuse the process with a sense of urgency, ensuring that the momentum of the sales drive is maintained. 

However, the true measure of the action plan’s efficacy lies in its key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics, be it lead conversion rates or customer retention figures, serve as tangible markers, highlighting the plan’s strengths and signaling areas that might require recalibration to increase sales.

Corrective action plan example

The essence of a corrective action plan lies in its meticulous structure, tailored to address and rectify deviations or inefficiencies identified within an organization. At its core, each action item serves as a focal point, detailing specific areas or processes that require intervention. 

Accompanying each action item is a clear description that provides a comprehensive understanding of the issue at hand. 

However, merely identifying a problem isn’t enough; delving deep into its origins through root cause analysis ensures that solutions target the fundamental issues, rather than just addressing superficial symptoms. 

This analysis then paves the way for defining the corrective action, a tangible step or series of steps designed to mitigate the identified problem and prevent its recurrence.

Besides, to ensure the plan’s effectiveness, assigning a responsible person to each action item is paramount. This individual or team is entrusted with the task’s execution, ensuring accountability and focus. 

The status of each action keeps stakeholders informed about the progress, be it in the planning phase, ongoing, or completed. 

Lastly, setting a due date for each corrective action introduces a sense of urgency and purpose, ensuring that issues are addressed in a timely manner, minimizing disruptions and maximizing operational efficiency.

Simple action plan example

A simple action plan strips away the layers of complexity, offering a concise and direct approach to achieving a goal or addressing an issue. This type of plan is characterized by its straightforward structure, devoid of extraneous details, yet powerfully effective in its clarity. 

It is specifically designed for tasks or objectives that don’t necessitate elaborate strategies or multi-layered approaches.

The core components of a simple action plan usually include a clear statement of the task or objective at hand, followed by a sequence of actions or steps to be taken. 

Each step is described succinctly, ensuring that anyone involved has a clear understanding of what is expected. Responsibilities are defined clearly, with each task allocated to an individual or a team, ensuring accountability. Timelines might be integrated, providing a clear framework for completion, even if they’re just broad milestones. 

Regular check-ins or assessments, although minimal, might be incorporated to monitor progress. 

The beauty of a simple action plan lies in its agility and adaptability, making it particularly suited for individual projects, short-term tasks or situations where a rapid response is required.

How to write an action plan?

Creating an effective action plan is a foundational step towards turning aspirations into tangible results. It provides a clear roadmap, ensuring that each step taken aligns with the overall objective.

Whether you’re aiming to enhance a business process or achieve a personal goal, a well-drafted action plan can be your guiding light. Here’s key steps on how you can craft one:

• Step 1: Establish SMART goals: Initiating with a goal that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound ensures you have a clear and focused endpoint in sight. Smart goals serves as the cornerstone for your entire strategic blueprint.
• Step 2: Determine necessary tasks: Decompose your overarching objective into smaller, actionable tasks. This modular approach not only makes the mission less daunting but also provides a sequential pathway to goal attainment.
• Step 3: Assign essential resources: Depending on the tasks at hand, designate necessary resources, be they human, financial or technological. This ensures that every activity has the backing it needs for successful execution.
• Step 4: Prioritize tasks by importance: Not all tasks hold equal weight. Determine the hierarchy of tasks based on their impact on the goal and their time sensitivity. This allows for a systematic progression.
• Step 5: Outline timelines and key markers: With tasks in hand, set clear deadlines for each. Introduce milestones, which act as periodic check-ins, ensuring you’re on track and allowing for celebrations of smaller victories.
• Step 6: Oversee and modify your strategy blueprint: As you progress, there will invariably be learnings and challenges. Regularly review your plan to make necessary adjustments, ensuring its relevance and effectiveness.
• Step 7: Consider ready-to-use templates: If starting from scratch feels overwhelming, lean on structured templates to guide your planning. There’s plenty of business plan softwares and platforms such as  Venngage that offer a plethora of action plan templates , tailored to various needs, which can significantly streamline the process.

An action plan is more than just an action steps, it’s a strategic blueprint that bridges the gap between aspirations and realizations. 

Through this comprehensive guide, I’ve walked you through the purpose, ideal timings, core components, and practical examples of action plans across various domains. 

Leveraging tools of project management , you can track progress, assign tasks and ensure every team member stays on the same page. 

It’s not just about setting goals, but about strategically planning every step, ensuring tasks completed align with the larger project goals. 

Remember, success isn’t just about having goals but about charting the right course to achieve them

And if you’re looking to supercharge your planning efforts, don’t miss out on the Venngage business plan maker. 

Dive into their extensive collection of action plan templates and make your strategic planning both efficient and effective. 

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How to create an action plan (with free templates and examples)

An action plan template provides a ready-made framework for quickly adding the steps — like tasks, due dates, and assignees — to achieve your project goals. It’s a great way to ensure your project action plans are effective and consistent so everyone understands what’s expected.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to write an action plan step-by-step, with examples for inspiration. Plus, you can download two free action plan templates — including one from our Work OS — to get started immediately.

Download Excel template

What is an action plan?

An action plan is a detailed blueprint that outlines the steps you, your team, or your organization will take to achieve a specific goal. It includes specific tasks or actions with due dates and assignees, a timeline, and the resources required to accomplish your goal.

Action plans include detailed information, such as:

• A description of each action or task to complete
• The person responsible for each action
• Due dates for each task
• Resources required to complete the action
• Space to reflect or take notes after you have completed a task

What is an action plan template?

An action plan template is a pre-structured document that gives you a framework for crafting your new action plan. A practical action plan template has designated spaces for each aspect you need to cover, often presented in a table format like this.

Free action plan templates

Here are two free action plan templates you can download and use today:

Try monday.com’s Action Plan Template:

This action plan template breaks down goals into actionable steps that you can prioritize, assign ownership, and track progress. You can also add start and end dates for each action, plus relevant details and files.

Get the template

Download the free action plan template for Excel:

Why is an action plan template important?

Leaders and managers use action plan templates to speed up the strategic planning process . Rather than spending unnecessary time designing the document used for planning purposes, project managers can simply pull up their template, save a new copy — keeping the existing template intact — and get straight to work scheduling and assigning tasks.

Action plan templates ensure consistency

Additionally, templates help to ensure consistency across plans and teams. When your organization uses the same action plan template for the whole company, it’s easier for team members to interpret and understand the plan — because they’re familiar with the format — and it contributes toward an organized, professional appearance.

Action plan templates help you plan more effectively

Action plan templates help project organizers plan more effectively by offering predefined categories and columns, reducing the chance of human error or omitting information from an action plan. In addition, you can apply any learnings from the project management process to your template. That way, you’ll consistently improve subsequent action plans.

While completing a project, you might find that some of the tasks in your task lists didn’t have clear outcomes. In addition, it wasn’t immediately obvious how to identify when the task was complete. So, you could borrow from the SMART goals framework — Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound goals — and include a new column in your action plan template to note how you’ll measure if the task is complete.

And when using an action plan template built on a Work OS like monday.com, you can add your action plan to relevant project boards, create cross-team automations , and more — making it easier to collaborate with a distributed team in real time.

What are the essential features of an effective action plan template?

Action plan templates should contain the following features:

• Multiple views — such as tables, timelines, Kanban boards, and Gantt charts to visualize tasks.
• Task notifications — to detail and assign tasks to team members.
• Structured layouts — to plan tasks based on priority, status, and resource allocation.
• Collaboration ability — to maintain notes, comments, and files in one place.
• Automations — to update task status and notify owners.
• Status columns — to show the current status, such as Stuck, Working on it, and Done.
• Dashboards — to track overall progress, timelines, and budgets.

What is the difference between an action plan and a project plan?

A project plan is more detailed than an action plan. Both list the tasks, timelines, and resources required to achieve a desired goal. But project plans also include:

• Project goals and objectives
• Project milestones and deliverables
• Project scope and budget
• Project roles and responsibilities
• Project stakeholders and communication schedule
• Project risk mitigation and contingency plans
• Project success criteria

You can create an action plan from your project plan to outline the steps required to achieve your project goals.

What are the key elements of a well-written action plan?

A well-written action plan consists of seven components:

• Goals: define what the action plan aims to accomplish.
• Steps: detail the actions required to achieve each goal.
• Items: determine the task dependencies and priorities.
• Timeline: maps out the schedule and milestones from start to finish.
• Resources: identify the people, tools, and budget required.
• Responsibilities: assign tasks to an individual or a team.
• Review: monitor the overall progress of action items completed.

What are some examples of action plan templates?

Now that we know what they do, let’s look at a few action plan templates.

Business action plan template

This template outlines how to write an action plan to track progress toward a specific business goal.

( Image Source )

This action plan begins by detailing the primary goal, with the first column dedicated to a breakdown of each action required. For example, if your business goal was to design and launch a new website, your activities might include:

• Gathering design assets
• Choosing a color scheme
• Copywriting for new website pages
• Assembling design and development teams
• Creating design wireframes
• Design and development
• Launch and promotion

Note that the second to last column in this action plan template is reserved for noting potential hazards. This helps identify roadblocks that might get in the way of achieving your goals to plan around them.

Personal development action plan template

Though action plans are most often used in a business context, they can be a handy tool to help you stay motivated and work toward your personal goals.

This template allows you to break down your actions into a step-by-step sequence and includes a “How will I know I’ve been successful?” column to ensure that the actions you write down have a clear outcome.

Corrective action plan template

Creating an action plan can also be a great way to solve a specific business problem or even an issue with a particular employee’s performance. This is known as a corrective action plan, as shown in the example template below.

A corrective action plan template includes important columns, such as “metrics and constraints” — to help users complete tasks and plan for potential roadblocks — and “percent completed” — to help measure the progress toward the goal.

monday.com’s Action Plan Template

As you’ve seen in the examples above, the typical action plan format is a PDF or Microsoft Word document. While this is fine for goal setting and creating the plan itself, it’s not so great for putting it into action.

That’s why we’ve purpose-built a flexible, customizable, intuitive action plan template to use with monday.com.

When you design your action plan on monday.com, you can:

• Access multiple views (such as a table, Kanban, and timeline) to work in a manner that suits your needs.

• Assign tasks to individuals and notify them instantly.
• Comment and collaborate on tasks to keep communication contextual.
• Design custom automations to save valuable time and ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
• Report on progress with the Progress Tracking Column.

Once there is buy-in from the team on the plan, it is easy to copy actions, dates, and assignees over to the task management board.

Because monday.com is a comprehensive Work OS, any action plans you create with this template also integrate with relevant project boards. In addition, comprehensive analytics make tracking easy.

How to write an action plan step-by-step

Never created an action plan before? Then, follow this simple guide and get started with the free template above.

1. Determine your goals

First, you need to understand what you’re trying to achieve. Then, make this goal as specific as possible.

For example, “increase sales” is not a clear enough goal. “Increase sales by 20% in quarter three” is more specific and allows you to set a metric for achieving it.

2. Break down the steps required to achieve each goal

What actions are necessary to get there?

In this example, that might include:

• Hire three new sales development representatives
• Increase content marketing budget by $20,000
• Implement a new sales training program for new hires

3. Determine task dependencies and priorities

Remember: you can’t do everything at once! So now that you’ve broken down that big goal into bite-sized chunks, you need to figure out the perfect order for completing the tasks. In the above instance, you need to hire new sales representatives before starting a sales training program.

4. Set milestones

Now, set some milestones for significant events or checkpoints along the project. Some typical milestones are:

• Completion of a substantial task or phase of the project
• A significant event, such as a product launch
• Important meetings, like customer review meetings

5. Add deadlines

When do you need to complete each task? Setting deadlines for each task helps your team stay on track and allows you to identify if your timeline for the larger goal is realistic.

6. Identify the resources you need

What’s getting in the way of completing these tasks? What do you require — perhaps from leadership or another team — to meet or exceed your goals? In our sales team example, we might need some assistance from the HR department to advertise an open role and attract new applicants.

7. Assign tasks to individuals

Who is responsible for each action? Assign a clear task owner to each task. Ownership doesn’t just make someone feel accountable; it empowers them to take the initiative and solve problems without dragging in management at every twist and turn.

8. Agree on a plan to review progress

Before you jump in and start your project, determine how you will measure progress toward your goals. For example:

• Will you review your action plan every day or every week?
• Will the task assignees or the project leader be responsible for updating the plan to reflect progress?

Determining these answers upfront means the action plan remains a living document reflecting actual progress.

Customize our Action Plan Template to your needs today

Prepare and present your action plans with our flexible, customizable Action Plan Template. Team members will love the multiple views, automations, and collaboration features to keep them on point. And you’ll benefit from the Progress Tracking column in your weekly reports to stakeholders.

FAQs about action plans

What’s the difference between an action plan and a to-do list.

An action plan and a to-do list are helpful tools for organizing tasks and achieving goals. A to-do list is a list of tasks to complete, but not necessarily for the same goal or project. Typically, to-do lists are less organized than action plans and can change daily. In contrast, an action plan follows specific steps and includes tasks that all lead to completing a common goal.

What's the difference between an action plan and a strategic plan?

An action plan and a strategic plan are essential for an organization’s long-term and short-term planning. A strategic plan outlines an organization’s vision for the future and helps prioritize goals, make resourcing decisions, and unite employees. On the other hand, an action plan makes the strategic plan operational by providing detailed instructions on how to accomplish those goals.

What’s the difference between an action plan and an implementation plan?

An implementation plan and an action plan are essential documents that help teams execute a project successfully. An action plan focuses on the specific tasks needed to achieve a goal. In contrast, an implementation plan is a more holistic document outlining the steps, teams, and resources required to execute a project successfully.

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How to Turn Strategy Into Action

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The tangible value of your strategy can only be realized when it’s translated into action by an organization that understands the priorities and goals of the business.

5 Steps to Turn Strategy Into Action:

1. translate and elaborate on the strategy., 2. confirm execution priorities., 3. define strategic initiatives., 4. engage and align the organization., 5. measure, monitor and adjust..

In a previous GrowthBit, I shared my perspectives on and approach to Formalizing a Winning Business Strategy.  Today, I want to focus on the art and science of turning strategy into action, because this is an area where smart, capable companies often stumble.

Creating a strategy is essential, but it’s only the first step. It’s when a strategy is translated into specific actions , timelines and responsibilities that it enables an organization to deliver on key goals. Without this executional layer, the most brilliant, focused strategy will be challenging to be implemented and fall short of the desired impact.

When I work with our portfolio companies, I lead them through a multi-step process of translating strategy into action while building ownership for moving things forward:

Step 1: translate and elaborate on the strategy..

In many situations, strategies are defined in broad, directional terms and often lack deeper, clearer definition. For example, a strategy to “Expand Geographically” may be directionally sound but unable to execute until the next layer of questions are resolved. Questions like “Which geographies should we expand to (or avoid) and why?”, “Should we build, buy or partner our way into each specific market?” and “Should we expand in a particular sequence?” exemplify the type of thinking that requires further elaboration.

One technique I’ve found useful over the years is to ask 1) What does this mean? and 2) Why is this important? to draw out everyone’s thinking and to identify areas where additional analysis or thinking may be needed.

Step 2: Confirm Execution Priorities.

Once a strategy is more clearly defined, it is important to establish clear priorities. Typically, I challenge management teams to identify and align on three to five top level priorities within a desired timeframe (e.g,. calendar year, multi-year view, etc.). What are the three to five most important things that need to get done? How will this advance your strategy and competitive position? Sometimes leaders identify broad actions as priorities (e.g., “Expand new logo capture” or “Broaden our wealth management platform”) while in other cases, they identify key goals (e.g., “Increase Retention by __%” or “Drive ___% Margin Improvement”).

See the illustration below for an example.

I try not to get too hung up on whether broad actions or goals are being identified as priorities, as long as the leadership team is clear on what they mean and why they are important.

Step 3: Define Strategic Initiatives.

To make the strategy actionable, it needs to be broken into specific initiatives that individuals and/or teams can own and execute. Each initiative should have clear goals, accountabilities, milestones and timing expectations. For example, a technology business I work with has a goal to improve customer favor by 20% during the next 12 months and improving service delivery is critical to accomplishing this. They developed a customer excellence strategy and broke one of its key priorities into the following strategic initiatives:

Priority #2: Improve End-to-End Service Delivery

Initiative 2a: Implement service cloud by Q3 2018

Initiative 2b: Roll out full set of service standards and KPIs by Q4 2018

Initiative 2c: Redesign our customer success process by Q4 2018

There are a couple of simple templates or frameworks that can be used to help identify and plan key initiatives. An example “Action Plan”  appears below. As you will see, it links a set of initiatives to an overarching priority in a simple planning template that everyone can use.

Step 4: Engage and Align the Organization.

When it comes to strategy execution, the most important success factor is the engagement and alignment of the organization. This begins with identifying clear and accountable owners and participants who will work on key initiatives and it translates further into the organization through the clarification of goals, the alignment of incentives and ongoing communication. This may or may not be a straightforward process depending upon the complexity of your business and the volume of initiatives underway. Great strategies and plans have failed due to lack of organizational ownership. To combat this, keep the “Q x A” equation in mind: the Quality of the strategy TIMES its Acceptance = the Effectiveness of the result. Paying ample attention to the “A” in the equation will payoff in terms of getting to the results you seek.

Step 5: Measure, Monitor and Adjust.

Once you’ve translated the strategy into a plan of action and rolled it out across the organization, the last step is to monitor your progress against the action plan.

This needs to be a separate activity from monthly financial reporting and annual reviews. Reporting financials monthly isn’t enough, because it doesn’t tell you what’s driving those financials. And while an annual review is an important way to gauge progress, a year is too long to wait. When you’re a fast-growing company, you can’t afford to get halfway through the year before realizing whether you are on or off track with critical strategic initiatives.

Two best practices have emerged across LLR portfolio companies. The first is to introduce regular monitoring and reporting of strategic initiatives through dedicated bi-weekly discussion among the leadership team along with basic “red/yellow/green” status reporting concurrent with monthly financial reporting. This ensures that priority initiatives stay visible while providing a regular forum for discussing progress and issues.

A second best practice is to more thoroughly review and evaluate strategic progress during an in-depth quarterly business review (QBR), which often precedes a quarterly board meeting. During these intensive reviews, managers convene to discuss facts regarding performance and initiative progress and to determine if course correction is needed. Some companies methodically review each strategic priority and the associated initiatives in terms of “what’s working and what’s not working,” after which adjustments are identified and initiated. By doing this on a regular basis, management can stay on top of important strategic efforts while making critical adjustments along the way.

Here’s the bottom line.

Setting strategy is critical to success, but it’s only half the battle. The tangible value of your strategy can only be realized when it’s translated into action by an organization that understands the priorities and goals of the business. Set priorities. Define key initiatives and assign them to specific individuals. Work on gaining broader buy-in. Then measure, monitor and adjust as needed. If you can maintain this discipline, you’re going to see incredible value from the strategy you worked so hard to create.

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Business.govt.nz, in association with, turning strategy into action.

Your strategic plans will only succeed if you can put them into action. After you’ve looked at your situation and considered the options, you should have an idea of the right strategy for your business. Now you need to document your strategy, break it down into smaller objectives and tasks, do those tasks, and monitor your progress. You’ll also need to manage the change in your business and bring your team along with you.

From a plan to a strategy statement

A strategy statement is how you record the strategy you’ve chosen and show how it leads to the outcome you want. It’s the starting point for turning your strategy into doable tasks. This is when it starts to become real.

Have you identified your strategy by looking outwards at your market, looking inwards at your business, and looking for opportunities to create your own space in the market? Grab your notes in your strategy planning worksheet, and use this page as a guide to documenting your strategy and putting it into action.

Your strategy statement will help you communicate your strategy and test everything you do against it. A simple strategy statement fits on one page, and clearly shows the objective, scope and advantage that make up your strategy. You can write your strategy statement in three steps.

1. Choose your objective

Your strategic objective should be a single goal. Make it specific and measurable, and set a target date for when you will achieve it.

Your objective should flow from the plans you developed by looking at the market, your business or both. For example, maybe your current market position of being the lowest-priced fireplace retailer in your area doesn’t suit your business profile. Your objective needs to help you set this right. You could set an objective to improve customisation to move your market position. You aim to have 50% of today’s total customer numbers designing their own custom fireplaces two years from now, adding value that will support prices about 40% higher.

2. Set your scope

Your scope is the boundaries your business will not go beyond to achieve your objective. Think about your scope in three areas: customer or offering, geographic location, and vertical integration (buying parts of the production or sales process that you previously outsourced). The ‘Looking inwards’ part of the strategy planning worksheet should help you set your scope by finding:

• the unique activities that make you money — focus on these
• the activities that aren’t unique or don’t make you money — focus less on these, cutting them back if you can
• other opportunities to add more value without too much extra cost, or to cut costs without hurting your value.

For example, you might want to expand the business but decide that you won’t open a new branch in the South Island until your business reaches a certain size. Or you might want to reduce your emissions, meaning you don’t scale up the business until you’ve made your production process more efficient.

Defining your scope up front helps you avoid wasting effort on tasks that don’t fit your strategy.

3. Identify your advantage

Your advantage explains the things that make your business unique, and how and why those things will help you succeed. You might plan to build on an existing advantage, or to redefine your point of difference.

Your strategy planning worksheet should have helped you identify your advantage by looking at your business, your customers, and your market. For example, your advantage could be:

• making the most of your key resources if they are valuable, rare and hard to imitate — like the perfect location
• providing something that your customers value and that they can't get anywhere else
• creating new value by adding product or service elements to what you offer today
• taking an opportunity you’ve identified to stand out from the competition.

Write your own strategy statement

To write your strategy statement, use our template with instructions, tips and examples for each of the three steps above.

Hinewai writes her strategy statement

Hinewai’s vision is for her gym to be the happiest place to work out for people of all ages in Hamilton in three years. She wants to develop a strategy that can help her get there.

She has looked at the Hamilton gym market, identified activities that made her Tauranga operation succeed, and worked out some options to create her own space as a community-focused gym in Hamilton. She feels ready to decide on her strategy and put her plans into action.

First, Hinewai looks at the other gyms in Hamilton. There are three major gyms, each offering similar training programmes but with different membership rates based on their location. She sees that she can’t compete directly with them based on price.

Hinewai’s business partner Sam is from Hamilton and has worked with two of the major gyms before. Hinewai identifies that Sam’s a key resource who understands the community better than anyone, and has the networks to recruit the right trainers for her gym. She also notes the other key resources and activities she needs to make her business unique.

Hinewai is keen to explore some options to stand out from competition. To make her gym space welcoming for everyone, especially for elderly people, she identifies some key points of difference her Hamilton gym will need. For example, she’ll need specialist trainers who can provide yoga, Pilates, and other balance and physical therapy programmes. She’ll need her facilities to suit people with restricted mobility too. Hinewai spots an opportunity to tailor the fit-out and decoration to suit that segment of the market. She hasn’t yet fitted out the space, so senior-friendly layout and furnishing choices won’t add much cost for her. Competitors would have to tear out some of their current setup to make changes.

Hinewai writes her strategy statement.

• Her strategic objective: Double the number of fitness programmes offered in her gym and turn the Hamilton operation profitable by the end of the financial year.
• Her scope: Provide specialised training programmes for elderly customers in Hamilton. She’ll update facilities to suit this audience, hire new staff, and do some targeted marketing. She won’t remove any current programmes or equipment. She’ll stop offering loyalty discounts for current members, which doesn’t align with this strategy. 
• Her advantage: She’ll use her business experience from Tauranga and Sam’s local insights and networks to help build the team required for a high-quality experience customised for older customers. They have unique skills and experience competitors can’t match. The gym’s layout, decorations and furnishing will be tailored to these older customers. She has an advantage over competitors here because she’s already budgeted for work on the facilities, and tailoring that work won’t change the cost much. She’ll have the right programmes, people, and facilities for this target market. Other gyms would need significant investment and a complete change of culture and focus to attract similar customers.

Create a strategy scorecard

Once you are clear on your strategic objective, you need detail to implement it. Everything you do must line up with your overall goal. Creating a scorecard will help you develop all the projects and targets that will go towards meeting your strategic objective. Then your scorecard will help you track what you do and see how it contributes to your overall objective. You can create your strategy scorecard in three steps.

1. Start with your strategy statement

A scorecard for strategy can work only if you have a clear picture of what you’re trying to achieve. Everything in your scorecard relates to your strategy statement. This statement helps you describe what your business will look like at a set time in the future. If you have already written one, you have a great starting point for your scorecard.

2. Break your strategic objective up and add detail

This stage breaks your strategic objective into more detail in areas that are crucial for your business. For example, if you are a retailer you may be interested in improving your customer service. If you are a charity, you might be interested in community and wellbeing goals. Figuring out your detailed objectives helps you find how to measure progress, set targets and plan projects that help you reach them.

Split your strategy’s overall objective into four categories. Here are some popular categories that could be a good starting point.

• Finances: what financial goals will my strategy help achieve?
• Customers and stakeholders: how well should I be performing to meet their expectations?
• Internal processes : what objectives for systems and processes do I need to meet customer expectations?
• Innovation and learning : what new products or processes do I need to meet my overall objective?

Financial objectives are common for most strategy scorecards, but other areas could differ. If you pick your own categories, make sure they fit your overall strategy. For example, if you want to focus on sustainability you could use that as a category, writing detailed objectives for energy use, waste reduction, and other related topics.

Plan what you’ll do for each category. Everything you do should improve your performance in that category and contribute towards your overall strategic objective. Hinewai in our example above might pick customers as a category, and identify detailed objectives related to:

• ensuring all activities are accessible to people with lower mobility
• catering for customers with poor vision or hearing
• providing transport for those who need help getting to the gym.

Keep the strategy statement and your overall objective at the centre and check how your four categories contribute towards achieving it. Your detailed objectives in each category need to be consistent with each other, and with the objectives in other categories. For example, you might check your financial targets are consistent with your objectives for innovation and learning or community objectives.

Make sure your timelines for these tasks align with your overall objective. Some of your projects could be quick and relatively simple. Others could be more complex projects that take months or years to complete.

3. Set the right targets and measure your progress

The smaller the business, the more areas you generally want to improve. But connecting each detailed objective to your overall strategy helps you focus on the right measures and targets. For example, you might define ‘increased sales over last year’ as one measure for growing your profits, and choose ‘20% by value’ as your target.

When you’re working towards your strategic objective your measures will help you track your progress. For example, you might check against your eventual targets or set a series of milestones along the way.

Use numbers to analyse your business

Create your own strategy scorecard

To create your strategy scorecard, use our template with instructions, tips and examples for each of the steps above. You’ll create a scorecard that expands your strategy statement into the four categories you want to focus on, each with detailed objectives, measures, targets and what you’ll do to meet them.

A scorecard does more than just measure

Once you’ve created your scorecard, you’ll find it useful for more than just tracking your strategy. It’s also a great starting point for communicating change to your team, for planning the investment you might need, and for checking back to see if your strategy is holding up well or needs a review.

Communicating and linking

Scorecards help you make sure everyone understands a strategic objective and how their own actions relate to it. For example, your team may be worried about change, and this worry can often make people resist new responsibilities.

You could draw up a scorecard and talk everyone through it, so you all have the same understanding of the bigger picture. You could also use the scorecard as a prop for talking to each team member individually.

Exploring how their new everyday tasks contribute to the overall strategy helps people see that what they do matters, and helps them understand how they help the business succeed.

Planning your finances

Any strategic objective you pursue is going to have an impact on your finances. Your strategic objective gives some direction to guide your budgeting and how you allocate resources. You’ll need the right people and equipment working towards the objective, and the money to pay for them.

Your objective also helps you set financial targets for revenues, expenses, profits and investments. Look at your financial statements and compare them against your strategy statement and the finance information in your scorecard. Where are your strengths? If you need to address some areas, what would they be?

Use our financial modelling workbook to estimate the future cash flow you would require to meet your strategic goal.

How to read financial statements

Financial models: Step-by-step guide

Feedback and learning.

You can use a scorecard to get feedback on your strategy and gain new insights about your business. For example, maybe your projects to reduce costs are going well, but your overall costs are still well above your target. This might show you that you’ve missed out other important factors to measure, or that other projects or objectives are conflicting with this one.

Managing change is key to success

Putting a new strategy in place will mean change for your business. When you introduce any change in the business, you can affect your people, processes, systems, business structure, job roles, or a combination of these. Managing change is always hard. As a small business owner you will probably be doing it on your own, without specialists or a big budget. The flip side of this is that you can also react to new opportunities faster than a larger company. And if you find problems with your strategy you can change quickly in response.

Vital steps for successful change in a small business

The most important steps for change management are:

• helping everyone understand the change — agreeing it’s important and urgent so they feel an emotional connection to it, rather than just feeling obliged to take part
• creating a shared vision and collaborative approach — working with your staff rather than commanding them, helping them feel part of the process
• establishing new systems and processes — starting with quick wins to keep up urgency, then scaling up the changes to your business practices
• getting the change to stick — demonstrating how new approaches have improved performance, and ensuring that key people in your team support the change and set a good example.

If you can keep an eye on each of these, you have a good chance of success with your new strategy.

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Grow your business with the action plan, the 11 step business action plan.

I came across this article on the American Express Open Forum and had to share it with our followers and clients.  Murray Smith gives a quick 11-step list for creating a business action plan in this article .  In our system, OnStrategy , we use Action Plan Reports to show a person or department’s goals and action items, due dates, and status.  Like Smith says, the Action Plan Report is a great way to, “help measure progress toward your goals.”  Smith also says how, “in business, your action plan is the key to focusing on the right information in the right order.”  We could not agree more with Smith and his take on the Action Plan.  Below is the article, The 11 Step Business Action Plan, by Murray Smith .

Many people don’t like planning. But in business, your action plan is the key to focusing on the right information in the right order—much like the combination to a safe—and it helps measure progress toward your goals.

Here’s how you should use an action plan to accelerate growth and increase your revenues and income.

1. Create a revenue plan: Identify your sources of revenues, the product or services that you offer, how many you plan on selling, and the price you will charge. This will let you know if it’s possible to achieve your financial goals.

2. Map your gap: This is the distance from where you are to where you want to be. This includes your financial, non-financial and personal goals—revenues, profits, volume of sales, number of customers etc. It’s a snapshot for you to decide if it’s the journey you want to take, or change it.

3. Know your customer: Make sure you know who your ideal customer is, because it’s often not who you think it is, or who you are currently selling too. Knowing the profile of your customer will help you save time and money when it comes to acquiring them. This is the foundation for every business.

4. Document how your prospects/customers think and behave: Specifically, you should think about why customers decide to purchase—which is the key to making the sale. Every decision starts with a desire created by internal emotion or external influence. If you follow the way they think and act then you can place your product or service right in front of them at the point of decision.

5. Create a unique positioning in your market: In a world of clutter, what gets heard is a simple message. Identify the biggest problem in your marketplace and then tell people how you solve that problem and say it in less than 1 minute.

6. Know what sets you apart: Write down the biggest benefit that you offer your customers (a benefit that your competition doesn’t offer). It doesn’t have to be a coherent statement, it just has to have impact.

7. Take action: This is what is missing from the book The Secret which talks about using The Law of Attraction to bring abundance into your life. You cannot attract abundance without taking action. Affirmations, visualizations and meditation all work together when you add action to the formula.

8. Success starts with the belief that it’s possible: Your current belief system may not be helping you achieve your goals. Old paradigms (beliefs) are the number one reason for holding us back from achieving what’s possible. Click here for a copy of Chapter 7 from my book The Answer to help you change your paradigm.

9. Determine which distribution channels you will use for your business: A distribution channel is simply the place where the transaction takes place between you and your customer—otherwise known as the Point of Sale. The seven distribution channels to choose from are: retail, online, direct sales, events, mail order, phone sales or agents.

10. Select the right strategies: These should get people to the Point of Sale identified in step No. 4, and there are about 130 strategies and tactics to choose from (i.e., advertising, direct mail, copywriting, tele-marketing, Internet marketing, etc.).

11. Create a 90 day sales and marketing schedule: This will help you plan the strategies, tactics, timing and who will be responsible for implementation. Once you get your thoughts on paper (or excel spread sheet) you will feel less overwhelmed that you now have some direction to follow or action items to delegate.

These 11 steps are not intended to represent a complete guide to creating a detailed Action Plan—they are intended to help you get started. Now you have something to measure against and you can review things periodically to see if you are on track. Ask yourself every day if you are on track or if something needs to be adjusted.

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What is business transformation?

For years now , transformation has been a catchall term for how organizations make the right moves to achieve their full potential. Companies usually aim to deliver healthy financial performance and organizational effectiveness before focusing on higher growth, new strategies, and tech-enabled solutions.

But the pace of change means that waiting to “earn the right to grow” is no longer the best strategic or financial option. Just a few trends tell the story: new digital entrants are disrupting industries, with many capturing more value and significantly higher equity valuations than incumbents; ecosystem-based strategies are gaining ground; companies committed to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are increasingly standing out; and talent is a bigger priority than ever in the C-suite, as leaders try to ramp up the right capabilities to create value.

In such a dynamic business environment, focusing on new ways of working, new capabilities, and new technologies is the way forward. Yet transformations are not easy to get right. Research by McKinsey has long documented that enterprise-wide transformation is difficult, with less than a third of transformations  reaching their goals to improve organizational performance and sustain these improvements over time.

Here’s what years of research have taught us about how to launch a holistic and enduring business transformation.

Learn more about McKinsey’s Transformation  Practice.

Why begin a transformation program?

Many companies turn to transformation because their leaders seek to capture untapped potential or to realize gains in growth or efficiencies.

While the most successful transformations address most of an organization’s value creation opportunities, some transformations focus on a particular theme (for example, a workforce transformation to adopt agile working methods ).

Almost all transformations are “digital transformations” because they require new investments in technology and tech-enabled processes. But some digital-transformation initiatives are so significant that they are large, stand-alone efforts.

Companies undertake transformation in pursuit of a number of goals, including tackling urgent external challenges (disruptive, new market entrants), industry discontinuities (technology is changing consumer behavior), or macroeconomic pressures such as supply chain woes.

Many organizations adopt transformation methodologies to achieve broader strategic goals, such as creating value from ESG; making big M&A and portfolio moves ; and prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion  principles for greater impact.

Who’s involved in a transformation?

The CEO helps a transformation succeed  by communicating its significance, modeling the desired changes, building a strong top team, and getting personally involved.

The chief transformation officer (CTO) , a C-suite role that is becoming more prominent in many sectors, is the high-level orchestrator of the transformation process . The CTO should be an extension of the CEO, with the mandate and authority to make decisions about personnel, investments, and operations. The CTO may be in charge of hundreds of initiatives, but responsibility for making day-to-day decisions and implementing those initiatives lies with line leaders, transformation managers, and others.

Introducing McKinsey Explainers : Direct answers to complex questions

While C-suite attention is crucial, a lot more people are needed to make a transformation work—often 25 percent or more of the workforce. These employees play transformation-specific roles, such as work-stream lead or initiative owner. But what is the minimum level of employee involvement needed to guarantee transformation success? McKinsey recently looked at data from 60 organizations that are at least two years into their transformations and found that transformations with at least 7 percent of employees  owning part of the transformation are twice as likely to deliver better total shareholder returns. While 7 percent may seem like a small number, even at a medium-size organization that can mean hundreds of employees.

Learn more about McKinsey’s  Transformation  Practice.

How do transformation leaders achieve their goals?

The most successful transformations turn ideas into detailed business plans with trackable, time-bound metrics to measure outcomes. Ultimately, these business plans should result in value creation, cost savings, growth opportunities, and other improvements.

Many transformations are enabled by a central transformation office  (TO), with the CTO at the helm. The TO defines goals, models new ways of working , and ensures that the overall program and specific work streams stay on track. It also offers a repository for leaders to get help when faced with difficulties and to develop new skills.

Typically, the TO enables results through weekly, action-oriented meetings. Attendees can include a sponsor for each work stream and other key initiative owners, plus representation from finance and the CTO.

Beyond the transformation plan, the TO helps to ensure that the organization changes the way it works over the long term, so that the company doesn’t revert to old ways as transformation initiatives are completed.

What makes transformations successful?

According to a McKinsey Global Survey , three core actions are especially predictive of transformations that capture the most value:

• Using an objective fact base to identify opportunities for improvement. The more thoroughly an organization uses facts to assess the maximum financial benefit from a transformation, the more confidence leaders will have to pursue ambitious yet realistic targets that reflect the transformation’s full potential.
• Communicating a compelling reason for why a transformation is necessary. Simply protecting the bottom line isn’t enough; leaders need to explain why employees should do things differently. If people don’t understand what the transformation means for their daily work, as well as for overall business goals, their mindsets and behavior won’t change and organizational health will suffer. Role modeling, developing talent and skills, and fostering understanding and conviction  are ways to make sure people are brought on board and stay there.
• Matching the company’s best talent to its most crucial initiatives. This action emphasizes the importance of linking business and talent priorities  by creating a clear view of where value is generated in the company, and who in the organization has the ability to deliver that value.

McKinsey research also shows that the execution stage—embedding transformation disciplines into business-as-usual structures, processes, and systems—is key to generating value. Companies that have undergone successful transformations are more likely than others to have made substantial changes to their annual business planning processes  and review cycles, from executive-level weekly briefings and monthly or quarterly reviews to individual performance dialogues.

When it comes to widespread results, generous and specific financial incentives are one of the most effective tools to motivate employees. According to McKinsey analysis , companies that implemented financial incentives tied directly to transformation outcomes achieved almost a fivefold increase in total shareholder returns compared with companies without similar programs. In tandem, a well-crafted program of nonfinancial incentives  can create a higher level of energy and excitement across the organization and boost employees’ discretionary efforts.

Finally, speed is of the essence. Companies with top-quartile financial performance typically capture 74 percent of their transformations’ value within the first 12 months. That value can be reinvested in new initiatives, creating a virtuous circle of improvement.

Learn more about McKinsey’s  Transformation  Practice .

Why do transformations fail?

Several additional behaviors can put a transformation at risk:

• Declaring victory too early. In successful transformations, companies typically turn their initial burst of idea generation into an achievable, rigorous plan  within a few short months. Unsuccessful transformations don’t sustain that early impact. This can happen for a number of reasons: for example, if budgets don’t stay aligned with objectives, performance and governance discipline can trail off.
• Not establishing clarity on resources. Without clear owners and accountability for actions, it’s impossible to embed rapid decision making  and to reinforce new mindsets to keep the transformation moving.
• Failing to refine as they go. No single action, or group of actions, defines transformation success. However, leaders who invest in tangible changes to business-as-usual structures, processes, and systems; prioritize transformations as the main event; and maintain a long-term mindset can give their organization the best chance at achieving the full potential of its transformation. According to McKinsey research on successful business transformations , many companies restocked their number of initiatives by as much as 70 percent after the first year. That’s a sure way to maintain momentum for the challenges ahead.

Learn more about McKinsey’s  Transformation  Practice, and click here to check out business-transformation-related job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced:

• “ Meet the newest member of the consumer C-suite: The chief transformation officer ,” December 5, 2022, AD Bhatia, Kevin Carmody , Rebecca Johnson, Emily Rizzi, Jim Scott, and Kristi Weaver
• “ You can’t move too fast: A conversation with Andy Penn ,” September 6, 2022, Wesley Walden
• “ The powerful role financial incentives can play in a transformation ,” January 19, 2022, Hugh Bachmann, Robin Ligon, and Dominic Skerritt
• “ Losing from day one: Why even successful transformations fall short ,” December 7, 2021
• “ How many people are really needed in a transformation? ,” September 23, 2021, Laura London, Stephanie Madner, and Dominic Skerritt
• “ The numbers behind successful transformations ,” October 17, 2019, Kevin Laczkowski , Tao Tan, and Matthias Winter
• “ The wisdom of transformations: How successful CEOs think about change ,” July 23, 2019, Oliver Bladek, James Deighton, Alison Dunn, Tip Huizenga, and Wesley Walden

Want to know more about business transformation?

Related articles.

Losing from day one: Why even successful transformations fall short

Meet the newest member of the consumer C-suite: The chief transformation officer

The numbers behind successful transformations

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How to Write an Action Plan (Example Included)

What Is an Action Plan?

In project management, an action plan is a document that lists the action steps needed to achieve project goals and objectives. Therefore, an action plan clarifies what resources you’ll need to reach those goals, makes a timeline for the tasks or action items and determines what team members you’ll need. We’ll define what project goals, project objectives, action items and action steps are later in this guide.

An action plan documents the execution of the project plan; it’s a detailed list of the work that must be done to complete the project goals, including the action steps that are involved in getting from the start of the project to the finish. An action plan is similar to a project implementation plan and it’s very helpful during the project planning and project execution phases.

Not only are you figuring out the action steps and timeline, but you’ll also determine who you’ll assemble for your project team to work on those tasks. This requires robust project management software like ProjectManager . ProjectManager offers multiple action planning tools such as Gantt charts, kanban boards, project calendars and more. Best of all, these project planning views sync with project dashboards, timesheets and workload charts to keep track of progress, project resources and costs.

Action Plan Components

An action plan answers the who, what and when of what you’re proposing. Those questions are answered by the various components that make up an action plan. The following are the basic building blocks of a successful action plan.

• Action Plan Steps: The action plan steps are the answer to the question of what. They’re the activities that’ll lead to achieving your goal. Action plan steps detail what will happen, and the more detail, the better.
• Action Items: The action items are the specific, small tasks that make up the action plan steps. These are the tasks that, when executed, lead to the next action plan step.
• Action Plan Timeline: An action plan timeline is the whole action plan laid out from start to finish. It shows the full duration of the action plan and every step and task is also plotted on this timeline, including their start and end dates.
• Action Plan Resources: Resources are anything needed to execute the action plan. That includes labor, materials, equipment, etc. You’ll want to identify the resources you’ll need for the action plan and attach them to the tasks to which they’ll be applied.
• Action Plan Matrix: A matrix is just a tool to help you determine which tasks you need to complete and in what order. Use our free action plan template to outline the steps, items, timeline and resources you’ll need to get the plan done right.
• Action Plan Report: Once you start to execute the action plan, you’ll need to ensure your actual progress matches your planned progress. To track progress, you’ll want to use an action plan report, which is a snapshot of your time, costs and more over a specific period.

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Action Plan Template

Use this free Action Plan Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Types of Action Plans

There are many different types of action plans that are used on various kinds of strategic initiatives. Each is similar in makeup but differs in their goals. Here are a few of the varieties of action plans.

Business Action Plan

A business action plan is used to set goals and tasks when you want to start a business or grow an existing business. It outlines the vision for the business and the actions you’ll take to achieve that vision.

Project Action Plan

An action plan for a project is really no different from a general action plan. The only difference is that it’s about producing a deliverable at the end of the plan, whether that be a product or service.

Personal Action Plan

Again, a personal action plan differs little from any other action plan except for the goal. For example, a personal action plan might be for an individual to exercise more. Therefore, the goal might be to walk for a half-hour a day, say, during lunchtime.

Action Plan Sample

Take a look at this sample of an action plan. We used our free action plan template for Excel  and filled out some potential marketing tasks, phases and assignees. Download this action plan template for free from our site, and get started on your own plan today.

How to Write an Action Plan for Project Management in 10 Steps

The benefits of an action plan are simple: you’ve now outlined what action steps and what resources are needed to reach your stated project goals. By having this collected in a single project management document, you can more successfully plan out how to execute your project plan.

People get overwhelmed by project management jargon when having to plan out a project, but the word “action” everyone can understand. The fundamentals to getting an action plan together for any project follow these four project planning basic steps:

1. Define Your Project Goals

There’s a difference between project goals and project objectives. Project goals refer to the high-level goals that the project will achieve. Those generally align with the strategic planning and business objectives of organizations.

2. Define Your Project Objectives

The project objectives are much more specific than the project goals. Project objectives refer to the deliverables and milestones that need to be completed to achieve your project goals.

3. Define Action Steps

The action steps are a group of related tasks or action items that must be executed to produce project deliverables.

4. Identify and Prioritize Action Items

Action items are small, individual tasks that make up the action steps that are outlined in your action plan. First, you need to identify task dependencies among them, and then assign those action items a priority level so that they’re executed sequentially.

5. Define Roles & Responsibilities

Now that you’ve divided the work required to accomplish your action plan, you’ll need to assign action items to your project team members and define their roles and responsibilities.

6. Allocate Resources

As with your project plan, your action plan has resource requirements. Having identified your action steps and action items will help you understand what resources are needed for each task and allocate them accordingly.

7. Set SMART Goals

Your action plan needs to be monitored and controlled to measure its performance. That’s why it’s important that you set SMART goals for your action items, action steps and your project objectives. SMART goals stand for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely.

8. Set a Timeline for Your Action Plan

As a project manager, you’ll need to do your best to estimate how long it’ll take to complete your action items and action steps. Once you do so, you’ll have a timeline. You can use project management techniques like PERT charts or the critical path method to better estimate the duration of your project action plan.

9. Write an Action Plan Template

Create or use a simple action plan template to collect tasks, deadlines and assignments. This is the place where everything task-related goes in your project action plan, so you have a place for all this crucial information.

Writing an action plan template it’s a great idea because you’ll need to use that format throughout the project. That’s why we’ve created a free action plan template that you can download. There are also dozens of other free project management templates for Excel and Word that can help you with every phase of your project.

10. Use a Project Management Tool

Use a project management tool to keep you on task. ProjectManager has project planning features that help you monitor and report on project progress and performance. Get a high-level view of the action plan with our live dashboards. Unlike other tools, we don’t make you set up the dashboard.

Once you’ve mapped out your action plan, you can use project planning tools to zoom into all the details about your action steps and action items. With ProjectManager, you can calculate various metrics, such as project variance, workload and more. They’re displayed in easy-to-read charts and graphs. Share them with stakeholders to give them updates on action steps whenever they want.

Tips to Write an Action Plan

Once you have an action plan, how do you work with it to run a successful project? Here are some tips to help with implementing your action plan:

• Focus on priorities and what’s due now when identifying action steps and setting your action plan timeline
• When you complete action steps, mark them off
• Have your team members work on one project management platform
• Set up alerts
• Discuss pending or overdue tasks

Action Plan Example

We’ve been talking a lot about an action plan, but let’s take a look at one in-depth. Below, you’ll see our free action plan template . It’s set up for the development of a website.

It’s broken down into phases, the first being the project planning phase , which includes the action steps, market research and the design of the site. You’ll see that tasks are outlined for each action step, including a description of that task, who’s assigned to execute it, the priority and even the status of its completion.

This is followed by the third action step, which is the launch of the site. This is the execution phase of the action plan, but it follows the same format, such as noting the priority, who’s responsible for the work, what that work is and its status.

There’s also a timeline to define the start dates of each of the tasks in the action steps, including the planned hours. This allows you to determine the length of each task and the duration of the entire action plan, from start to finish.

Finally, there’s a place to add your resources. They’re broken down into departments, for example, marketing, web development, etc. Then the materials that are required for each task are listed, including their costs. This allows you to estimate the cost of the plan.

How to Make An Action Plan With ProjectManager

Follow along with this action plan example to see how action plans are typically laid out using project planning software .

1. Map Action Plan Steps Using Multiple Project Views

ProjectManager can help you build your action plan and then execute it. Collect all your action steps tasks on our list view, which does more than light-weight to-do list apps because it allows you to then map your action plan with Gantt charts , project calendars and kanban boards. These robust project management tools allow you to prioritize action items, customize tags and show the percentage complete for each task. Our online project management software gives you real-time data to help you create an action plan and stick to it.

2. Assign Action Items to Your Team Members

Once you’ve mapped out your action plan steps with ProjectManager’s project planning tools , you can assign tasks to your team members and indicate what resources are needed for the completion of each action item. Indicate their roles and responsibilities and set priority levels for each task to ensure the work is carried out properly.

3. Set Action Plan Steps and Deliverables

It’s important to note all the phases of the project timeline to know what action steps and tasks will take place and when. In addition, ProjectManager’s Gantt chart allows you to identify project phases, find the critical path, and set due dates for project milestones and deliverables

4. Track Progress With Real-Time Dashboards

Once you start the project, you’ll need to chart the progress of the work being done. This leads us to the real-time project dashboard , where you’ll check whether your action plan is on schedule and under budget.

Manage Your Project With an Action Plan

Getting a plan together is only the first part of managing a project . Remember, it’s not something to write and put away, but rather it’s a living document that should follow you throughout the project life cycle. Jennifer Bridges, PMP, offers more tips on how to write an action plan in the video below.

Here’s a screenshot for your reference:

ProjectManager’s Action Planning Tools are Ideal for Managing Action Plans

If you’re looking to make an action plan and then take action on it by executing, monitoring and reporting on a project, then you’ll want ProjectManager. Our online project management software lets you make an action plan online with multiple project planning tools such as Gantt charts, task lists, kanban boards and project calendars. Then, you can use timesheets, project dashboards and resource management tools to keep track of progress, time and costs.

Plan & Schedule With Gantt Charts

ProjectManager’s Gantt chart is ideal to map out your action plan on an interactive project timeline that helps you organize your tasks, link dependencies and set milestones. More than that, you can filter for the critical path. When you’re done scheduling your action steps you can set a baseline. This allows you to always see the planned versus actual progress of your action plan to help you stay on track.

Manage Action Items with Kanban Boards, Task Lists and Project Calendars

Once you’ve used the Gantt chart to create a timeline for your action plan, you can zoom into the nitty-gritty details of everyday work with kanban boards , task lists and project calendars. With these tools, you can assign tasks and give teams a collaborative platform to comment and share relevant documents with unlimited file storage and real-time communication features.

Track Progress, Resources and Costs With Real-Time Action Plan Dashboards

ProjectManager’s real-time action plan dashboards sync with all its project management tools so you can check the status of your action plan at any time. You can check on your team members’ progress to see who’s over or underallocated, check labor costs and track whether your team is on schedule.

ProjectManager gives you all the tools you need to create and implement a successful action plan. Regardless of the type of action plan that you need to create, our award-winning project management software makes it easy to do so. Get started with a free 30-day trial today. 

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CAPS Business Studies 11

Caps bs 11 term 2 week 2 – 3 transformation of a business plan into an action alan, topic – transformation of a business plan into an action plan.

Transformation of a business plan into an action plan (including Gantt charts and timelines) – collaboratively or independently

• Transformation of a business plan into an action plan (e.g. planning tools: Gantt charts or Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with timelines and responsibilities, project planning)