(The Fourth in the Series-III of ‘The 7 Mavens of SOPs’)
By Dinesh P. Bhrushundi @ dbknowledgey©
Profound Gratitudes, yet again from ᵭᵱᵬ’the मितवा’ for Great Response to Series-I & II, and a grand welcome to Series-III of ‘The 7 Mavens of SOPs’. As you know by now, ‘ᵭᵱᵬ’ is my initial and ‘मितवा’, a Marathi acronym for Friend (मित्र), Philosopher (तत्वज्ञ) and Guide (वाटाड्या), my humble role to ‘Sit Back and Give Back’, after 4 decades of career.
Series Title: ‘7 Mavens of SOPs’ is expression for instilling some of my learning as “seven propositions in sets of seven SOPs (norms)”, befitting the human mental capacity and attention span. The account that follows is from my early days of association with industry, but I think it is still quite relevant and useful.
Like the contemporaries, as a young engineer, I always had dreams and determination to deliver them too. Of course, I amply appreciated that ACTION is the bridge to be built between Aspiration and Achievement. However, it took a few failures to reckon that a ‘Good start is Half success’. It required some iteration to recognize that it would take a solid action plan as a STARTER to enjoy efforts and savior success equally. A quick glance of the diagram alongside will reveal the STARTER to you. Though it is self-explanatory mostly, please allow me few lines to expand it a bit to attune my ideas and your interpretation.
Sequence: The first slab at the base and then again at roof is the sequence or serializing all the tasks and their respective activities. In fact, the tasks (and activities) need to be broadly listed keeping the first and final task( activity) for the fulfillment of the purpose of the project for which the plan is being made. Few iterations / rearrangements during listing and working on further aspects below, and a final finetuning will set the SEQUENCE in order.
TASK: The next slab, and perhaps the most important one, is to ascertain the key deliverables/major milestones (I recommend 7-9; if required there can be subtasks for the bulkier tasks). It is a good idea to narrate them as briefly as possible (5-9 words), relating to each other with a flow of intertwining progressive logic. One should check if the completion of all tasks will result in realization of the fundamental purpose.
ACTIVITY: This slab suggests breaking down each of the tasks or sub-task further into the set of basic, single, and distinct ‘items to implement’ (5-7). As in the case of ‘TASK’, the two aspects apply here too: one, the activities are arrayed in a coherent manner and two, carrying out of all the activities listed against a task should lead to closure of that task. All the tasks, subtasks and activities together are referred to as the elements.
Responsibility: Easy to understand but difficult to apply is this slab. It calls for carefully identifying the persons (and not functions) who will own the activity, subtask, or the task. It is this person who takes the full charge of the associated work which need to be done in its entirety. (S)he may reassign the work, in leadership capacity to the junior members as and if necessary, however assuming the total accountability for quality, their support and schedule.
TIMELINE: The slab of timeline gives lifeline to this entire endeavor indeed. Again, very simple to see but a bit strenuous to foresee. Here is a twofold way out. Firstly, commensurate to complexity, distribute the whole period for the plan over elements: tasks>subtasks>activity. Secondly, isolate the serial and SIMULTENEOUS elements and allocate the start and finish times accordingly. The FORMER should start only after the completion of the preceding element to eliminate ‘waiting waste’ and LATTER must start together to optimize time.
ENABLEMENT: There are certain sets of skills and competencies which will be necessary for successful execution of plan. It is wise to list all of them and compare with those of team of persons identified in RESPONSIBILITY to assess the gaps. This slab of the plan expects that all the elements, for training the team members appropriately towards bridging the gaps, are forethought and furnished. It is also imperative to identify and include such elements as part of this step, which will be required for testing the accomplishment of the tasks and their associated milestones.
RESOURCE: Last but not the least is this slab upon which the success of the execution depends to quite an extent. It entails evaluating the resources at hand with the potential requirement. The ones which are partially or fully unavailable needs to be thought of and provided for here. It should be recognized that the short-cutting this part will cause the delay execution throwing the project timing haywire.
Above slabs as such can provide a header each for seven columns for preparing action plan. I am aware of the reaction of the readers that what has been narrated here is the matter of commonsense. I still attempted to do for making them reinforce this slabs and re-alert them to be conscious of the common practice of not letting commonsense prevail.
Bestest!
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