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Plans don't always work out. And the sooner you come to terms with that one fact, the lesser your chances of experiencing disappointments too often. There is a reason why it pays to have multiple plans in place for each project or endeavour you want to embark on, because it prepares you better to manage disappointment and give you a boosted chance at success. When you make plan A, have a plan B in place, even a plan C, and as many as those scenarios playing out in your head allows. Truth is, preparation is the ultimate key to success, and we can't totally eliminate failure from the equation of out life.
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Failure will sometimes happen whether we want it or not, but the level of preparation gives an edge that we can always leverage when met with situations that require critical yet strategic inputs to even have a chance at success. We are not always at liberty to choose our battlefields (i.e. what happens to us or the situation we are in), but we can decide what happens in the field of battle (i.e. how we respond to happenings around us. So, it boils down to whether you are strategically paced to make meaningful contributions capable of influencing the right set of outcomes.
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As a project manager, I know management to be more of managing risks and expectations, and neither can be achieved unless solid plans are in place. In management, there are three types of plan; strategic plans which are mostly for top level planning and decision-making, tactical plans which are mostly for mid-level planning and decision-making, and operational plans which are mostly for low-level planning and decision-making.
Strategic plans are futuristic and often formulated by the executives or those in the top management position in an organization, while tactical are often formulated by mid-level managers and it pertains to the day to day operations in an organization, while operational plans are often formulated by low-level or frontline managers and it pertains to roles and responsibilities of each individual that makes up the workforce of an organization. Therefore, the order of things would be to develop operational plans to support your tactical plans, and tactical plans to support your strategic plans. Understanding how all these works takes you one step closer to leveraging it's potency in getting a desired result.
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Don't just make plans, make actionable plans. You have to plan your resources, then direct them towards achieving the goals you've set. Actionable plan requires you to state clearly and understand the set objectives for that particular endeavour you want to embark on, plan the available resources, make a proper forecast of your cost resources, human resources and material resources, and to assign proper time schedules (to include start dates and deadlines), ensure strict adherence, then monitor for conformance.
You can't make actionable plans unless the goal you've set for yourself or business is SMART - "Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reliable and Time-bound", because your goals is the major determiner for how your plans turn out. However, you also.should know that SMART goals does not automatically translate to actionable plans. It just increases your chances at making actionable plans.
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