Action Planning

▪ What is Action Planning?

▪ Goals for an Action Plan
▪ Action Planning Model
▪ The Main Steps in Preparing an Action Plan
▪ Example Action Plan
WHAT IS ACTION PLANNING?
Action planning is a process which will help you to focus your
ideas and to decide what steps you need to take to achieve
particular goals that you may have. It is a statement of what you
want to achieve over a given period of time. Preparing an action plan
is a good way to help you to reach your objectives in life: don't worry
about the future, start planning for it!

It involves:
▪ Identifying your objectives
▪ Setting objectives which are achievable & measurable.
▪ Prioritising your tasks effectively.
▪ Identifying the steps needed to achieve your goals.
▪ Using lists.
▪ Being able to work effectively under pressure.
▪ Completing work to a deadline.
▪ Having a contingency plan
▪ A study of 327 job seekers.by Prof. Daniel Turban,
University of Missouri College of Business found
that writing a plan at the start of your job
search, has a big impact on success: make a
plan and continuously assess your progress.
"Thinking about a plan, acting on a plan and
reflecting upon that a plan were important early
in the job search while having positive emotions
were important later in the job search" You also
have to expect rejections and develop a
coping strategy in advance. This should help
maintain positive emotions during the process to
improve your chances of getting a job. Positive
emotions may help job seekers behave
more confidently and cope better with
stress, “thereby responding more skillfully in
 interviews than job seekers with less positive
emotions”“People don’t have strategies, they
don’t assess their plans and they don’t think
about their strategies and reflect on whether it’s
working or how to make them work better. They
just don’t do it."

Writing down your goals turns them into a plan, not a dream.

An effective action plan should give you a concrete timetable and

set of clearly defined steps to help you to reach your objective,
rather than aimlessly wondering what to do next. It helps you to focus
your ideas and provides you with an answer to the question ‘‘What do
I do to achieve my objective?’’.

It’s OK to have several objectives, but you will need to make a

separate action plan for each, otherwise things get confused.

Although here we shall be applying the techniques to careers, it can be

used effectively to help you to reach your goals in many other aspects
of your life.

The following are all valid goals for an action plan:

▪ To get more involved in a student society to get to know more
people.
▪ Deciding what skills I need to improve and deciding how I will
improve them.
When careers action planning there are likely to be
three main areas for action plans. These are:
▪ Choosing the career you wish to enter.
▪ Working out a strategy to help you enter this career e.g. application
and interviews.
▪ Developing skills that you need to acquire to allow you to enter the
career of your choice and to be successful in it.

ACTION PLANNING MODEL

In a survey of 50 start-up businesses, those with a
plan outperformed those without even if the plan
was not followed!Working together to develop
 a plan builds stronger relationships and a deeper
shared understanding of what needs to be done,
so if unexpected things happen individuals can
make good decisions.The best return occurs
when just one percent of the time taken to
carry out a task is spent on planning. Too
much planning can be procrastination: delaying
actually getting down to taking action.

"In preparing for battle I have always found that

plans are useless, but planning is indispensable"
President Eisenhower (overlord of D-Day landings) 

There are many different models of action planning, but a good

starting point is shown here. Action planning is a cyclical process, and
once you have been through one cycle, you can start again at the
beginning. Of course, in real life it’s not quite as simple as this. The
process is more organic and stages will overlap, or you may change
your goals as you progress, and you must be prepared to revise your
plan as circumstances dictate. The stages are as follows:

▪ WHERE AM I NOW? This is where you review your achievements

and progress, and undertake self-assessment.
▪ WHERE DO I WANT TO BE? This is where you decide your goals.
▪ HOW DO I GET THERE? This is where you define the strategy you
will use to achieve your goals, and to break down your goal into
the smaller discreet steps you will need to take to achieve your
target.
▪ TAKING ACTION. This is the nitty gritty where you implement your
plan!
▪ WHERE AM I NOW?
 

The cycle begins again with a redefinition of your goals........

The main steps in preparing an action plan are as

follows:
▪ A study on 1979 Harvard MBA students asked
them, "Have you set clear, written
goals for your future and made plans
to accomplish them?" Only 3% of the
 graduates had written goals and plans;
13% had non-written goals and 84% had
no specific goals at all. Ten years later,
they were interviewed again. The 13% of
the class who had goals were earning,
on average, twice as much as the
84% who had no goals. And the 3%
who had clear, written goals were earning,
on average, ten times as much as the
other 97% put together.

▪ Have a clear objective. (‘‘Where do I want to be?’’). To be

motivating a goal needs to be challenging enough to stimulate
us, but not too difficult enough to be demoralising. It should be
just outside your comfort zone: stretching but not highly
stressful.
▪ List the benefits you would gain by achieving your goal.
▪ Start with what you will do NOW. There is no point in having an
action plan that will start in six months time.
▪ Define clearly the steps you will take. ("How do I get there?’’)
Think of all the possible things you could do to take you closer to
achieving your goal, no matter how small. Break down any large
steps into smaller components, so it doesn’t seem so difficult to
achieve. What is the biggest obstacle? What could go wrong?
▪ Identify the end point for each step and give yourself a small
reward for achieving it! THis could be sweets, clothes, a gadget,
book or CD or meal out with friends.
▪ Arrange the steps in a logical, chronological order and put a
date by which you will start each step. Try to set
▪ yourself weekly goals: what research you will do into jobs, what
skills you will concentrate on learning etc. It’s also a good idea
to get into the habit of planning a timetable each evening listing
your tasks for the next day or two.
▪ Action generates the impetus for further
action: if you want something done
quickly, give it to a busy person.The best
time to do something is usually NOW!Life
satisfaction is greatest for those
involved in short term goals which
are enjoyable, not too difficult; and
done in cooperation with others. Focus
on one objective at a time and always
 have the next goal in mind. To accomplish
more difficult tasks, break them down into
components. The most satisfaction comes
from pursuing an objective, not simply
from achieving it. Ari Kiev Unless you
have a definite, precise, clearly set goals,
you are not going to realize the maximum
potential that lies within you. Zig Ziglar

▪ You need to consider if your plans are attainable and what would
happen if you failed to achieve your goals. Try to map out
several paths to your goal, then if one becomes blocked
another is available: build flexibility into your planning. People
tend to strongly underestimate how long a project will take,
especially if working in a group because they tend to visualise
everything going to plan with no problems. Think about the
type of problems you might encounter at each step. What
are the barriers in the way of achieving your goal? What you
would do to overcome these problems? Concentrate 10% on the
problem and 90% on the solution. Try to turn every problem into
a challenge and every challenge into an opportunity.
▪ Review your progress. Keep a diary or blog of your daily activities
and record your progress as things happen: this keeps your plan
as concrete as possible. A good time to start your review is
about two weeks after you have begun. Review how far you
have got towards your objective, identify any mistakes you
made and what you can learn from them, look at any new ideas
or opportunities that may have presented themselves and then
revise your plan to incorporate these.
▪ Mix with positive people who will encourage you to keep going!
Tell your friends or relatives about your goals. They will
provide support when going gets tough and will also give you an
incentive to keep going as you'll feel embarrassed if you have to
tell them you've given up!
 

Visualisation techniques can help prepare neural pathways in the

brain for when the task is performed for real. However research has
found that visualising just the outcome decreases chance of
success so you need to imagine the steps along the way as
well. Oettingen and Mayer found that students who reported
fantasizing about success made fewer job applications, received less
job offers and had smaller salaries. So you need to realistically assess
problems that could be encountered as well.

EXAMPLE COMPLETED ACTION PLAN

MY OBJECTIVE IS: To choose my future career!

TO ACHIEVE THIS I NEED TO:  List the steps you need to take. Be detailed and spe
contact some employers’’, but ‘‘Find email addresses of 5 local employers who have m
departments & contact them"

I will tell my plan to: my three best friends, my parents!

I will start my action plan on (date):
Step 1. I will use the Prospects Planner computer guidance system to help me to iden
interest
Step 2. I will use the "What can I do with my degree in ..." pages to find out what job
from my subject can enter

Step 3. I will pick up booklets from the Career Service on some of the careers sugges
through these.

Step 4. I will use the Careers Network to arrange a day shadowing the work of a grad
Career that seems to be most of interest.

Step 5. I will see my careers adviser to discuss the ideas I have got from the above a
these down.
What problems am I likely to face? What will I do to overcome these? Fear of
long and now realise that I must take action or miss opportunities.Will I be able to arr
suitable in the Careers Network, may have to contact companies directly for help.

 
Now write your own action plan ......
MY OBJECTIVE IS: 

TO ACHIEVE THIS I NEED TO:  List the steps you need to take. Be detailed and spe
contact some employers’’, but ‘‘Find email addresses of 5 local employers who have m
departments & contact them"

I will tell my plan to:

I will start my action plan on (date):
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
What problems am I likely to face? What will I do to overcome these?

Beating Procrastination
Procrastination can involve the fear of failure, perfectionism ("I don't
want to get anything wrong"), lack of self control, not breaking
projects into smaller parts, and underestimating how long it will takes
to do things.

Once you have started an activity, your mind constantly nags away
until you have completed it. Once it's done, your mind clears it away,
like when you close down a program on your computer. So start an
activity and just spend a few minutes on it initially and this
should help to beat procrastination. As the Mastermind quizmaster
says: "I've started so I'll finish!".

The Theory and Practice of Equity

 

Planning: An Annotated Bibliography

▪ John T. Metzger1
 +
Author Affiliations
▪ 1Michigan State University.
Abstract
Equity planning is a framework in which urban planners working within
government use their research, analytical, and organizing skills to
influence opinion, mobilize underrepresented constituencies, and advance
and perhaps implement policies and programs that redistribute public and
private resources to the poor and working class. This approach
divergesfrom the downtown-oriented land-use planning tradition of most
U.S. cities. The bibliography compiles literature that describes some of the
theoretical and political debate about planning for social equity goals. It is
also a resource that informs and guides planners, public administrators,
urban policy analysts, and community leaders regarding some of the
actual experiences of equity planning over the past twentyfive years.