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Generally action plans are limited to a small and manageable number of goals. This helps to keep the plan realistic and achievable.

For each action you should identify:

• The timeframe and priorities for each action.
• The people who will be responsible for undertaking each action.
• Specific performance indicators to help you determine in the future whether your business has succeeded in achieving the business goal.

Once you have these details identified, you can progress to formulating a series of strategies to be undertaken to achieve the goals of each action item. It often helps to break the various strategies tasks down into simple and specific steps to keep the plan on track and avoid getting overwhelmed or losing control.

An important step is being able to evaluate within a set period of time if the action plan has been a success. Failing to do so could result in a plan that continues on indefinitely without ever actually achieving anything positive for the business.

To evaluate your action plan, go back to the initial objectives you set out and decide if they have worked, not worked or are in the process of being achieved. Be critical of each objectives success or failure in this stage. If your original targets were too optimistic, then you need to admit this so that you will be able to move on.

Sometimes it may become apparent that an action plan has failed to meet its objectives. Therefore, you may need to reassess and redefine your original objectives and strategies to improve their success or abandon the plan and start again at the beginning rather than waste resources on a plan that isn't working.