Operational planning should be seen as a sub-section to strategic planning. While strategic planning may set out the medium and long term direction of the organisation, the operational plan examines how to implement it in a given operational period. To illustrate: an operational plan will often be used as a tool to help with budget planning whereas a five-year strategic plan might require five operational plans as the budget is assessed each year. The operational plan helps break the strategic plan into several smaller more manageable parts in which you can prioritise and plan specific goals.
Budgeting the Plan
A budget is an essential tool for financial management and good governance.
Effective organisations prepare and work to annual budgets, which may be made up of several sub-budgets (department budgets or budgets set against specific projects or programmes).
Once the budget is formulated, agreed by senior management and approved by the board or management committee, it should underpin the work of the organisation.
Monitoring and evaluation takes place at regular intervals throughout the year and the effect of deviations are reported and acted upon in the best interests of the organisation.
Monitoring- KPIs
Key performance indicators are ways of measuring (or indicating) the performance of an organisation.
To assess if the strategic plan or operational plan is successful, from the outset organisations will need to establish some indicators that could give a measurable indication as to the success of the strategy.
Performance indicators can be:
- Quantitative – presented as numbers
- Practical – organisational processes
- Directional – if the organisation is getting better or not
- Actionable – controlling change
- Financial – economic indicators
Key performance indicators can follow the SMART criteria of what is measurable to be essential for a performance indicator.
Many sports will already know key performance indicators from their work with elite athletes and junior talents.
