by Chris Anderson
© 2005
http://www.bizmanualz.com/?src=ART43
Have you ever had the opportunity to watch the construction
of a large building? The daily progress from foundation to top floor is truly
amazing, and if you’re like me, you wonder “how does it all happen?”
The answer: it takes a lot of planning.
The Planning
Phase
A complex construction job clearly requires planning
in excruciating detail to orchestrate materials and manpower. Inadequate planning
can result in waste, delays and a shoddy end-product.
Building
an effective management system is equally dependent on executing a strong planning
phase. This article is the second of five that describe how to build such a system
in your organization.
Writing Procedures
The
planning stage is arguably the most important step in any large-scale project.
If you fail to plan properly, everything else will likely follow this failure.
Just
as a construction contractor wouldn’t dare start ordering materials or pounding
nails without a plan, your firm must avoid moving too quickly into the actual
development phase of writing procedures that are the basis of an effective management
system.
Business Assessment
Using
the construction analogy, the first step is typically a survey of the parcel of
land on which to construct your building. You’ll examine such conditions
as utilities, roads, property grade and soil. In a management system development
project, we call this step a GAP Analysis, because it articulates what the “gap”
between current reality in your organization and your stated objectives. Recall
that the objectives and measurable effectiveness criteria were established in
Phase I – Discovery.
The results of the Gap Analysis
are used as inputs to produce a project plan.
Planning
the Project
The Project Plan details the materials and
tools that will help management control the project as well set budgets and schedules.
Most of us are familiar with the components necessary to manage the conversion
of a bare piece of land into the architect’s vision: drawings, bids, permits,
contracts, work orders, and inspections. But what is required to develop a management
system?
Your project planning phase includes producing these
components that will greatly ease the Development and Implementation Phases (III
and IV, respectively) and make for an overall solid structure:
- Project
roles and responsibilities
- Organization chart
- Activities,
resources, dates
- Reviews structure
- Status reports
- Document control and format
- Process map
- Compliance
requirements
- Training, implementation, testing and audit plans
Review the Process Map
Before concluding the
Planning Phase, a review is conducted of each component with emphasis on the process
map and effectiveness criteria to ensure alignment with identified organizational
goals. This check will help eliminate project drift in the coming phases.
The
Planning Phase takes from 2-4 weeks.
