Weekly Action Plan Template
Weekly Action Plan Template
If you want a quick way to track everything that is important for you to plan, execute and complete, look no further than weekly action plan templates. Whether it’s an overall business action plan, a department action plan, a project action plan or a small team action plan, having the important elements tracked on paper, and shared among key team members or the entire department keeps things on track.
While a daily action plan might be helpful, as well as a monthly action plan, a weekly plan is the most functional of time plans because a workweek offers flexibility to tackle tasks but also make amendments to your activities.
It is important to recognize as well that things happen that will surely be beyond your control. Maybe a major supply chain breaks down and your company can’t get the parts you need for another week. Maybe a major client puts in a rush order for 10,000 units, and normal operations are put on hold. Therefore, consider a weekly action plan, whether business-wise or department-wise is a guide and a plan, not the 10 commandments from on high that can’t be changed when needed.
How to use a weekly action plan template?
First, use the weekly action plan template that is most functional for your needs. As you can see, there are Weekly Action Plan Template spreadsheet, group weekly Action Plan Template spreadsheet, individual action plans, etc.
Download the one that is closest to your particular needs. Also, if changes need to be made, a Weekly Action Plan Template Excel be modified to fit your individual needs. Simply go into the downloaded spreadsheet, and modify the Weekly Action Plan Template Excel to refine your spreadsheet. Need to add an additional row for a subject like
“reports to the team manager prior to final approval” category. Simply edit your Excel spreadsheet and add the row. If you are familiar with Excel, you know that it’s quite easy to edit anything you need.
So your preloaded spreadsheet is a guide, one that makes logical sense, but also one that can be modified as needs require.
But let’s just say for now, you do find the perfect weekly action template. One for example, that works for a team.
There will be a section for the names available of all team members. Then a second section for team goals. Then a third section for the specific objective or objectives you wish to accomplish to meet those goals.
It is critical to have the goals and objectives filled out first, because this is your overall team roadmap, what you want to accomplish, and a team leader or manager should spend a few hours refining these goals and objectives as closely to the company’s needs as possible.
Then comes the easy, or possibly at the same time, the difficult part, breaking down all the overall goals and objectives into small, individual units.
In the team action plan, we are thinking about this would break down into:
#1. Strategic Action Task or Description
#2. The party or team leader responsible for completing the task
#3. The date the action will begin
#4. The due date assigned to the team leader for completion
#5. The resources required
#6. The desired outcome
#7. A written evaluation plan of the individual task
For the team manager, tasks #1, number #5 and #6 are often the most challenging.
For example, a team involved in the shipping of goods may be an easy task to create.
It may be quite obvious that the person responsible is a shift supervisor, and let’s say the task is to ship out 15,000 units by the end week of widgets.
In this case, the projected man-hours can be easily tasked, the amount of product needed, the number of boxes etc. Everything is clear.
However, let’s shift our attention away from the shipping department and go into the world of software development.
First of all, the objectives are less clear, and it’s vital that they be clarified.
Will the software be created for a Mac, a PC, or both. Will the software integrate with previous company software or will it be brand new. Will the software do 10 different tasks or a 100?. Which are the three or five tasks that are most important?
In a complex task like software creation, a manager has to consider software testing, the elimination of bugs and, and the intellectual creation of the software.
This makes breaking down the tasks more difficult, as well as assigning the proper manpower to get the task done, but action plan templates are all the more important.
They help everyone in the individual team, the supervisors, the team managers, and the department managers communicate on the same wavelength.
