Every entrepreneurial project needs to have established objectives to know where to go, strategies that allow reaching those objectives and direction to know how and when to do all the tasks involved in generating a profitable business.
All these elements can be seated in a document that allows you to create great projects. That document is the work plan and in this post we will talk about how to create one that is useful to carry out your entrepreneurial project in the best way.
What is a work plan?
A work plan is the detailed guide for the development of a project. Think of it as the roadmap that allows you to identify the tasks that must be carried out to reach the established objectives. It can be as detailed as necessary and includes who is responsible for each task and a projection of when they should be done.
How does a work plan help your business?
Creating a work plan helps you:
- Sort your ideas and see new possibilities.
- Visualize the tasks that you must do.
- Create development stages of your project.
- Prioritize important tasks at each stage.
- Take control of your activities
- Organize yourself better.
- Be more productive.
- Take into account every aspect of your business.
- Schedule.
- Make better decisions.
Uncertainty often predominates in an entrepreneurial project and that fair element is what makes entrepreneurship attractive. However, there must be certain established processes that help you focus on what you have to do.
A work plan is a great tool for you and your team of collaborators that, of course, will improve your business and permeate relationships with your customers and suppliers.
How to make a work plan?
There are many ways to give structure to a work plan, but we leave you seven basic tips so you can put together work plans by project or a general one for your business.
- Define the purpose of your work plan.
- Project the scopes.
- Measure your resources.
- plan .
- Create the strategies.
- Define responsibility.
- Schedule.
Define the purpose of your work plan
You can make one or several work plans depending on what your business needs, but it is recommended that each work plan has an established purpose. What do you want to achieve with this plan in general? Why is it necessary to plan? Later you can set specific goals but it is important that you define in general terms the importance of this plan.
Project the scope
In this part, the important thing is to identify the limitations that you have as a company as well as the real scope of the planning, that is, what are the strengths of your business to achieve your objectives, whether commercial or operational, and also to know what your points are weak.
Having this vision will allow you to better plan the activities, key resources or key people you need to carry out the projected activities.
measure your resources
Once you have projected your scope as a company, the next step is to list your resources, both financial and human and material. How many people do you have? What is your budget? What tools do you have?
Knowing exactly what you have is an essential part so that you can plan your actions well and in case you lack any resource, propose strategies to achieve it.
Set SMART goals
The important part of your goals is that you state them in a clear, simple and actionable way. A methodology that will allow you to establish this type of objectives is to create them in a SMART way.
S (specific / specific)
They must be specific and focused on a single action.
M (measurable / measurable)
Being able to measure it quantitatively is necessary to focus efforts even better. Seeing a number gives us greater certainty than expected.
A (attainable / attainable)
The goal you set for yourself should be as achievable as possible, that is, it should not exceed your real capabilities as a business.
R (realistic / realistic)
In conjunction with the previous point, your goals should be as realistic as possible. For this reason, it is good to consider your specific goals before setting goals that cannot be met.
T (time / time)
Last but not least, your goals should have a set timeframe to accomplish. This element is essential when you create a goal because psychologically it helps you better manage your tasks.
Look at some examples of SMART goals.
- Finish 40% of our website in two months from January 1, 2022.
- Get 5% of my existing customers to make a next purchase with a new loyalty promotion by the second quarter of the year.
- Increase visits to the blog by 10% in the next 3 months using social networks as a dissemination channel.
Examples that are NOT a SMART goal
- Sell twice as much next month.
- Make an online store bigger than my competition.
- Enter a new market with my star product.
The difference in these sentences is that they do not define how you will do to achieve the goal, nor do you have a quantifiable figure that allows you to know if it is fulfilled or not and it does not refer to specific situations. Can you notice it?
✨Tip: use action verbs at the beginning of each sentence when writing your goals. This way you fulfill the requirement of being something specific and also make it clear how to achieve it.
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Create the strategies
At this point you are ready to plan the strategies that will make you reach those goals. It’s time to take out all your creativity and gradually define the actions you need to achieve your goals.
Within your work plan you can mention each strategy and develop it more calmly so that you have a deeper strategic plan. Some of the main strategies that you should take into account in your entrepreneurship are:
But you can define your strategic plan as you see fit, looking for the strategies that best help you reach your goals and adapt to your way of working. Remember that a work plan can be used for any project, including the search for collaborators or new clients.
Define responsible
At each stage of your work plan, it is recommended to define an owner or team leader for each activity. We know that at the beginning you may be responsible for most of the tasks, but always try to find allies to whom you can delegate responsibilities so that each activity is carried out in a timely manner.
It is also good that you prioritize the tasks that do not depend on a third party so that you can release them, for example, if you hire an external designer, take into account delivery times and give these times a backup for any unforeseen event that arises from outside, in the meantime you can define actions that can be generated within your team.
Schedule
Now is the time to lower all those actions to a calendar of activities, defining deadlines and considering adjustment phases if necessary. A work plan is most useful if it schedules deliverables, meetings, and everything you need to do.
There is no single model and the idea of scheduling is to have activities mapped with their delivery date or execution period. Having visibility of what must be accomplished and the objectives to be achieved is very useful for productivity
To schedule you can use from a spreadsheet to a physical whiteboard, here it depends on what you find most comfortable and functional. If digital is your thing, we share three tools that you can use for your activity scheduling.
allows you to make calendars and customize them. It is a good option if you are looking for something simple where you only mark dates. It has different templates and you just have to register to use them.
If you want something with more tools use . This platform is one of the most used at a business level and allows you to manage activities, connect Google or Microsoft calendars, create meetings with your team and plan tasks.
It is a tool that is more of a project manager than a calendar, however it allows you to monitor activities, see the progress of each of the activities and you can share projects with people on your team to see progress. It has usage alerts and is very intuitive. Highly recommended to carry out your work plan.
How to add a schedule to your work plan?
In order to map your activities on a schedule, take into account the following:
- List all your goals.
- Keep your strategies visible and break them down into concrete actions.
- List all those actions.
- Assign them a person in charge.
- Check the deadlines for each activity.
- Identify activities that have dependencies on each other.
- Prioritize what goes first.
- Make another prioritized list.
- Put it on your activity schedule.
Following these steps, we are sure that you can generate the best work plan that will help you promote your project and achieve the objectives you have in the short and medium term.
Conclusions
The work plan is the guide that your business needs so that you can prioritize tasks and not neglect the most relevant activities. Always remember to prioritize according to what generates more value and not just more sales.
At Tiendanube we love to promote success stories and for this reason we share this type of article with you, in addition, we want to invite you to learn about and create your first free online store. Learn about all the applications you can use with us and create a great entrepreneurial project.
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