CONTENTS
Action Planning Supervision: Overview Each objective should include an action plan, which "operationally defines" the objective by expressing it in terms of specific actions or operations. An action plan can help the supervisor stay organized, coordinate his or her team's activities, and keep projects on schedule. The action plan states specifically what steps or tasks will be accomplished to achieve the objective. It includes a schedule with deadlines for significant actions, resources necessary to achieve the objective, and methods to measure the objective. Preparing action plans addresses potential problem areas, considers the cross-functional impact of the actions, and ultimately increases productivity. Scheduling coordinates resources. It is important to schedule employees, as well as scarce or time-based resources, such as equipment delivery schedules. Also, schedules should include project dependencies, resource dependencies, and resource allocation. Tracking of the schedule can be reported by using a calendar, PERT, and Gantt charts. PERT is a flowchart-like view of project tasks. Each task has a box and arrows pointing to it from its predecessors. The predecessors are the actions or tasks that must finish before the task we are looking at can start. Gantt is a time-line view of the tasks. Gantt chart is a bar graph where the length of each bar shows the start and finish dates for each action or task. Resource costs should be tracked by a budget that shows each action's cost. The supervisor should define best-case and worst-case time lines for tasks, and the probability for each case.
Project-management software programs are available to help supervisors create action plans. The software is designed to organize tasks, track costs, manage employees, and meet deadlines. The most basic project-management program helps organize the user's thoughts so that a simple schedule can be created. It presents the user with a list of questions -- interviewing the user and brainstorming at once -- to extract all of the elements of a project, then presents the results in an organized fashion. Other programs add features such as tracking tasks and costs over time, or the ability to link interdependent tasks. Some programs can assign resources such as particular employees, to particular tasks. Some products also produce charts that list tasks and represent them, showing interdependencies, on a time-line.
Example: Action Plan
OBJECTIVE: To mail a newsletter to all members by the 15th of each month.
Steps
Start
End
Who
Write the newsletter.
1st
3rd
Jan
Proofread the newsletter.
3rd
6th
Ben
Print labels in zip code order.
7th
8th
MIS
Print newsletters.
9th
10th
MIS
Pick up newsletters.
11th
11th
Jan
Fold newsletters.
12th
13th
Ann
Prepare newsletters for bulk mailing.
14th
15th
Mail Room
Give newsletter to mail carrier by 4:00 p.m.
15th
15th
Mail Room
Review
Today's Manager Managerial Functions Management Levels Managerial Roles Management Skills Management History Business Environment Supervision: Planning Planning Process Operating Guidelines Objective Setting Action Plans Problem Solving Supervision: Organizing Organizing Process Power and Authority Delegating Communicating Managing Time Supervision: Directing Teambuilding Consensus-Building Selecting Training Leading Motivating Supervision: Controlling Controlling Process Coaching Counseling Disciplining Evaluating Terminating
