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People find comfort in structure. When you convert your great idea to a workable plan, you want to make certain you give it the backbone it needs to standup to the challenges it’ll weather between conception and completion. On a recent show, we said that to get other people to actively support your plan, it’s smart to incorporate these five keys:  Your plan is clear. It’s in writing. You gathered input from those impacted by the plan. The chief architect of the plan is also it’s administrator. And there is one particular person in charge of overseeing the implementation of the plan..

Here’s more:

1. The deadline should be specific and clear. Saying it’ll be finished by the end of the third quarter is fuzzy. Stating it’ll be finished by 11:30a.m. on March 3 is clear. Also, be sure to include specific targets for major milestones, such as, “we’ll have the beta test of the new product on January 15.”
2. Be sure to build in a plan for review and realignment to improve your plan in progress.
3. Make allowances for challenges and opportunities that pop up along the way. Remember the old driver’s education saying, “Expect the unexpected.”
4. The plan administrator should keep people informed of hits and misses. Clear and honest communication will help people swiftly and intelligently make adjustments.
5. You’ll want to articulate how success will be defined. Some questions to answer can be, “How will we know if we are successful? What should the final result look like? What will it do? What will it cost? What will we learn along the way?”

There you have it — 10 keys for constructing a plan that others will want to follow.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 5:30 am and is filed under Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.