Planning Tools

Here are some ideas and approaches you could use during your planning.  They have been collected from change management, life coaching and planning sites and literature.

Maintain. Improve. Change.

Much like 'Snog, Marry, Avoid' this is examining everything you do and looking at services, departments, activities or your whole organisation.  Consider what you are focusing on and think about what you will...

Maintain - keep the same because it's working and celebrate it with the outside world

Improve - make small, subtle changes to this to make it better

Change - either completely or a large portion of it

Keeping this kind of focus allows you to appreciate what you have and split work into more manageable chunks.

3 Is The Magic Number

A similar approach as before but this time only looking at three things at a time.  These can be any size or from anywhere in your organisation.  Choosing one thing can be overwhelming, two things start a bit of a debate as to which one you will choose but three means there's always something faster and lower priority which can bring a quick sense of satisfaction to complete.

Slip Inside The Eye Of Your Mind

Revisit everyone's motivations and expectations.  Are you or are they asking too much?  What drove them there in the first place?

Understanding and working with this knowledge may be enough to create a strong plan or implement change and growth.

Gimme Gimme Gimme

The message here is that important changes take time and are seldom seen as urgent.  The urgent things are perceived as important but seldom are.

Sometimes you have to focus on the important stuff and play the long game to make a plan or help it come to fruition and sift through the alleged urgent requests from users or other groups.

No, No, No, No, No, There (should be a) Limit!

This is working out what you will do by knowing what you won't do.  Some big things you will never change.  Behaviour, attitude, culture, and systems are embedded and practised by too many people for too long to fight, so we need to work around them.  Don't waste time, resources and your wellbeing by trying to change something you can't.

Time Of The Season

Planning/change/growth takes a lot of time and focus.  Think about the time it could take and look at your schedule.  If you have a major event in November, October, November or December aren't the best times to try and plan or implement change, wait until you have some time to focus on what you need to do.  It seems obvious to say this, but you often find that delivering big events or tasks highlights the changes and plans that need to be made and this becomes the catalyst.  But acting on it immediately isn't always the right move.  Schedule it for another time and set reminders to yourself to visit it when things are quiet (for you).