How to Develop a Plan - The Art of Constructing an Effective Plan in the First Place

A plan is only as strong as its own foundations - if you try and build a castle on marshland you get a sinking mess. Developing a plan correctly from the get-go is the best tact to take when you want to design your future plan. This article will discuss the basic thought processes involved in designing an effective plan from the get-go.

The process of plan design is not only about putting down on paper the things you foresee and the solutions which you think you will need to find or develop, but also it is about exploring possibilities. A well formulated plan involves some process of discovery and creativity - it's not just a case of putting down what you need to do.

1. What are you trying to achieve?

First things first. What's your goal? Are you sure that's exactly what you need to achieve?

Don't just blow this point off and go running ahead. Double-check. You want your goal to be stated as exactly as possible.

It's not just "I want to be good at martial arts" or "Our team needs to get better". More accuracy is helpful in a number of ways, not the least of all that your plan will be more streamline, more accurate, and more relevant.

So instead of "Growing my business" being the aim of your plan, how about... "Selling over 500 products every month for the rest of this year and totalling profits of £100k at year-end." Then you have a good starting point for your plan.

2. What needs to change for that to happen?

Some things need to change in order for your goal to be achieved. What are they? List them all, and as accurately as possible. List everything. If some points are vague, fine make them vague. But accuracy is good. You might have three points, you might have fifty.

Don't think about what you can do to make these things happen just yet, for now just think about what the actual differences are between the world were your plan has already been successful, and the world you're currently in.

So if we were formulating a plan for learning basic German, for example... we might have...

A) I understand over 1000 German words
B) I can read and write basic German
C) I can engage in a conversation with someone in German

3. How can you make those changes happen?

Now for each point you need a list of things you can do to make those points happen.

So for our example...

A) I understand over 1000 German words

- Buy a German-English program or dictionary

- Buy one of favourite books in English and German and read them side-by-side

- Drill two new German words every day

B) I can read and write basic German

- Sign up for a German forum on the internet and participate

- Get a Germany pen-pal

- Start a diary in German

C) I can engage in a conversation with someone in German

- Put an advert in the local community centre asking for language exchange with a German student or business person.

- Buy a language audio product and begin working through it.

Obviously there's plenty other ideas for action you could come up with - this is just an example. You want as many as possible. Notice that for point B there's things we could have mentioned from point A, but there's no sense in repeating yourself. If you want, write "see A for more". But either way, the points are now.

Now look through all your ideas for action, identify the most effective ones - those are the ones which make your plan happen in the best way, and most efficiently. Then write those in order of how important they are to your plan. So for example drilling two new German words every day may be quite low on your list, but buying a language audio product would probably be right at the top.

Once you're done you've got it - a to-do list plan developed effectively. Now you just have to do it.