How can you make your operational plan more resilient and agile?

I believe the first step in making the operational plan is to fully understand the corporate strategy and to then deep dive into how operations can support it. From the deep dive, and with a clear focus in mind, identify the strengths of the operations, the opportunities for improvement or implementation and run a thorough risk analysis exercise. I like to use the FMEA as a means of driving the discussion, identify potential issues, and assign scores for severity, occurrence and detection. These scores then help us prioritize where to put the energy first so that the biggest problems are tackled first.

To bolster the resilience and agility of your operational plan, prioritize adaptable processes, cross-train team members for flexibility, and conduct regular scenario planning. Embrace technology, foster continuous learning, and implement agile project management. Prioritize open communication, build strong partnerships, use data analytics for informed decisions, and maintain reserve capacity. Integration of these strategies strengthens your operational plan, enhancing its ability to navigate uncertainties and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

Complete a SWOT Analysis. With your leadership team and perhaps front-line managers, identify your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The opportunities and threats shall include two columns, Internal and External. Once this is complete, prioritize or rank each category. Use these items to build your strategic objectives. These should be incremental. Build a long-term, midterm and short term plan. Consider a 10 year Goal, 3 year picture and 1 year plan. Put together a 1 year plan with objectives aligned with your SWOT and 10yr Goals. Break up the 1yr plan into quarters. Assign each objective to a team member, 3-5 objectives per employee is ideal, and meet weekly for updates. Each quarter ends/begins new assignments. Repeat.

Strategic goals and objectives need to be part of daily conversations and follow ups. It’s not enough to share them! EVERYONE needs to understand how they impact them and what they can do to steer them in the right direction. These are part of the daily huddled that operations team discuss to ensure that progress if moving in the right direction. The teams are then able to identify opportunities for improvement if the results are struggling to meet the objectives. In this way, the strategy is lived daily in the operations and everyone understands the impact they have on the organization, which will drive engagement and mobilization.

Your Core Values must represent who you want to be. It’s okay to aspire to these values. Set them, then drive to them. Do not accept anything less. Hire, evaluate and terminate based on your core values. Keep them simple. Single words or short sentences describing the company and its employees. Three to five core values are good, no more or less. Your employees, customers and communities must recognize or understand them.

Have your team members choose individual objectives. Leaders must ensure they align with core values and operational plans. Meet regularly to hear updates. Ask them if they need help. When employees know your there to support they are more willing to step out of their comfort zone. Their objectives should stretch their abilities. This is growth, individual and enterprise growth! This is what it takes to achieve the 10 year goal.

Empowering the team also requires a change in leadership approach. For people to feel like it’s okay to learn and to solve problems, they need to feel supported and they need to feel safe to learn and make mistakes. Leadership need to be involved as a coach in the process so that people feel supported. It’s doesn’t mean to make the decisions for the employees, but rather help them navigate the questions, the decision-making process, identifying the risks, so that they can make the best possible decisions. Empowering does not mean that leadership is no longer accountable. It means that they help their teams grow by coaching, by supporting, by preventing costly mistakes. But they remain accountable for the end result.

Yes, I believe this is the best way, when you empower the team and stakeholders. It means the project will continue to improve with little improvement. Because new ideas are always welcome. And the ideas will surely bring about iterations.

Be willing to pivot on short term assignments or objectives as long as they align towards the 10 year goal. The 10yr Goal, 3yr Picture and 1yr plan must align each quarter through the life cycle of a business. If not, you are off course. Allow one quarter but never more than two consecutive quarters. It’s like a ship traversing the world. Stay on track.

Put together a document with your 10 year Goal, 3 year Picture and Core Values. Include your SWOT analysis. Identify your desired market, describe the value added to that market and then deliver that document to current and potential customers. Share it with all employees along with your one year objectives and the names of those responsible to complete those assignments.

Having a mindset of continuous improvement helps foster a mindset of continuous learning. These are both critical for resiliency and agility. When everyone understand what the organization is working towards, everyone can identify the challenges and the opportunities. By working together through an established process that allows to better understand the challenge, capture the right data, understand the voice of the customer as well as the voice of the business, it’s then possible to ideate solutions, test them and implement them. Sometimes, it might be best to have a team that focuses on exploration and another that works on exploitation. It allows to eliminate the challenges of the ambidexterity of the firm and move into the future.

These points are also true for scanning for risks. A team that can be call upon to be dedicated to addressing an upcoming risk is critical in building resiliency. It allows for better and faster understanding of the situation while being able to build plans for dealing with the risk. It’s also good to have another team to building the scenario for after the situation so that any learnings can be captured and used to modify the responses scenario and the processes. These two teams working together can ensure that anticipation of the risk is well managed and that the recovery is as efficient as possible in the least amount possible.

To enhance operational resilience and agility, consider regularly reviewing and updating your operational plan to adapt to changing circumstances. Foster a culture of continuous improvement, invest in employee training and cross-functional skills, diversify supply chains, and leverage technology for streamlined processes. Establish clear communication channels and contingency plans to swiftly address challenges, and encourage a collaborative and adaptive mindset within your team.

Create a comprehensive plan outlining your many year goals, 4-year vision, and core values. Conduct a SWOT analysis, specify your target market, articulate the value you bring, and distribute this document to customers. Share one-year objectives and assign responsibilities to employees.