Operational Planning Processand Managers' Critical Decisions
Part of operational planning process are critical decisions made by the manager. As we know the manager actuates decisions or goals made by senior management. We defined management as making pre determined objectives a reality. When you coach and train your managers print out this page as a reminders of 1. what their role means as managers, and 2. the questions to systematically guide them through their day, or their projects. i. What? Define what exactly needs to be done. From daily, routine work to occasional projects. ii. When? Decide when to do the job. For routine operational planning work it's easy: develop a schedule, daily, weekly, monthly. For projects it is a bit more complex. Does the project involve other departments? If using Financial department as an example, month ends and quarter ends matter. Is the project running into holidays or summer vacations? etc. iii. Where? Any action takes place somewhere. This is where our manager decides Where is the best place to do it. If the company is large with several locations, the manager could tailor the action to localities, or determine to do it in one place, etc. iv. How? Although all the questions/guidelines are important, some are easier to make a decision on. The "How" is a big one. I highly recommend that you quickly look at the Management Process Page to look at all the inputs that actually go into this question. This is where a lot of management and operational planning is done. v. Who? The choice of people is a prerequisite to the success of the operation or project. Do I need to say more? Check out my identification process.
vi. Why? Our manager's responsibility is to constantly ask why something is done. For routine work, the "why" challenges the employees to find better ways, to become more efficient or to see if the work is needed altogether. For projects, the "why" becomes one of the outputs. ------ More pages on Managing:
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