Creative Planning — Part 2

Strategic Planning for Life (Cont’d)

In Creative Planning — Part 1, I provided a short introduction to strategic planning, and more specifically, the use of this strategic plan outline. I also gave some insight into the first four planning stages in this method — Vision, Mission Statement, Situational Analysis, & Key Issues.
(Please read it if you haven’t yet done so. This week won’t make much sense without it.)

This week, I’ll be looking at the remaining five planning stages in this outline.

• Goals
• Objectives
• Action Plans
• Budget
• Assessment

When using this method, remember that each stage builds on the previous stage, and must answer to it. This is what keeps everything moving in the desired direction, and ensures that your eventual destination matches your original vision.

So, without further ado, let’s get started.
(numbering of stages continues from last week’s post)

5 — Goals

Many planning methods that I’ve seen, used, and evaluated, make goals the primary focus of the plan. While I’m the first to agree that goals are vital to any planning, I’ve found a foundational problem in most common approaches to goal-setting.

Many planning outlines jump straight from the vision/mission statement stage, straight to goal setting. Maybe it’s just me, but like Evel Knievel at the Snake River Canyon, I find that leap too big.

In this planning outline, goal setting is actually one of the easiest steps, because you’ve already done all the heavy lifting.

Your Goals are just your Key Issues, reworded as statements of purpose.

For instance, if a key issue, as mentioned last week, is my struggle to draw a recognisable portrait, and is stated as:
Key Issue #1 — I cannot, draw a recognisable portrait.
then the goal for that key issue is simply stated as:
Goal #1 — I will draw a recognisable portrait.

I’ve really found this method so much easier than attempting to pull goals out of thin air, as it were.

To recap: Your goals are your Key Issues (problem/challenge/desired outcome), reworded as relatively brief statements of purpose.

6 — Objectives

Objectives are detailed restatements of your goals.

While your goals specify mini-destinations necessary for achieving your overall vision, objectives specify how those mini-destinations will be reached.

Objectives specify what you need to do to achieve each goal. Moreover, they specify who needs to do it, and how it should be done, and when it needs to be done by.

Fortunately, there are five (5) easily remembered checkpoints for setting objectives from your goals. The key to objectives is to make them SMART.

1. S — Specific
   Your objective must be direct and straight to the point. Can you state, clearly and succinctly, for others and yourself, exactly what needs to be done?
2. M — Measurable
   What you’re trying to achieve, must be quantifiable. I must be able to measure/quantify the improvement in my portraiture drawing skills. This is absolutely vital. Figuring out how to measure objective achievement can be challenging in some situations, but don’t skimp on this step. Without this aspect, you will never know whether you’ve achieved your objective.
3. A — Achievable
   Don’t set objectives that are, in any way, not definitely achievable. Always err on the side of easily achievable, especially when you’re starting out. Don’t over-estimate your abilities, available time, available finances, support from others, etc.
   For instance, improving my drawing skills to a given level — recognisable by five other artists — is achievable. Saying that my sketches will be indistinguishable from a black & white photo, is not.
4. R — Realistic
   Is your objective realistic? Saying that I want to improve my art sufficiently to accept portraiture commissions is realistic. Saying that I am going to be more famous than Picasso, is not realistic. (Even Picasso wasn’t as famous as Picasso until after his death.)
5. T — Time-bound
   This is quite possibly the most vital step in a group of absolutely vital steps. How often have you decided to do something, and …
   Well, let’s just say that you’re still “busy” getting around to it. I know this scenario all too well myself. How long do you think it will take to achieve this objective? Set a date, and if necessary, a time for the completion of each objective.

Bonus Tip: Restate the goal for the objective at the top of the outline for each objective. Restate both goal, and objective at the start of each Action Plan. Very helpful for staying on track and not having to scroll/page back and forth too often.

7 — Action Plan

Now the rubber really goes smokin’ down the road.

The action plan stage expresses each Objective, in terms of detailed action points, that are, of course, also SMART.

The easiest way to set up your action plan is to ask yourself questions about the objective, such as:

• Exactly what needs to be done? (goal / sub-goal)
• Who must do it? (personnel)
• What is needed to do it? (resources)
• How will it be done? (methodology)
• For whom will it be done? (target)
  (in personal projects, you would be both personnel and target)
• When will it be done by? (time-frame)

The above is not an exhaustive list of the questions necessary to convert your objective into an action plan, but it covers the primary questions that must be asked.

Remember to cover all SMART points for every action and sub-action.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that I’ve handled this planning stage quite briefly. There may not be a lot to say about it, but it usually the takes longest in the planning.

8 — Budget

Everything costs something. In setting up a business or a non-profit project, the financial budget is usually of prime importance. However, if you’re planning a personal project, then your budgeting should go beyond possible financial aspects, and include things such as time and energy.

Yes, I know that for people used to thinking of budgets only as financial, this may sound a bit “out there”, but stick with me. Few would doubt the necessity of financial budgeting when planning a project. But, when you’re planning a personal improvement project, money may not even enter the equation at all.

When we budget financially, we assess our capital, our needs, our income & expenditure, and whether we can access financing from other sources. Well, what if your project does not require money, but only your time and energy? Time and energy, like money, are limited resources, and in a planning scenario, need to be treated similarly.

Failure to budget financially has been the ruin of many a project. Failure to accurately budget your time and energy will just as surely scuttle your plans.

How often have you heard (or said) something like, “I started doing it, but there just weren’t enough hours in the day.”

OR

How many people do you know (maybe yourself), who “burned out” while trying to make their dreams a reality?

Many of us already budget our time. We just call it a schedule.

Budget carefully — your money, time, and energy. Failure to budget, on all levels, will almost definitely result in the failure of your project, on some level. The following questions should be applied to all areas of budgeting — money, time, and energy.

• Capital — What resources do you currently (and for the project duration) have available? What have your energy levels been like over the past months? How much energy have you got to spare, that is not already required elsewhere?
• Income — What resources will become available during the course of the project? Are you sacrificing, or dropping something else to ensure that you have more time for this project?
• Expenditure — What financial, time, and energy output will be required for the successful completion of the project? Is your expenditure safely less than your resources? Telling yourself that “I’ll make time as needed.”, is really just planning to fail.
• External Sources — Loans, donations, and investments are often integral parts of financial project budgeting. So, why don’t you think of ways in which you can get more time and or energy from “external sources”?
  For instance:
  Are there aspects of a project that can be completed/worked on by someone else?
  Can you “borrow” time from other pursuits?
  What can you do to increase your available energy? Exercise, diet, cut out alcohol for a while? These are just a few ideas for “borrowing” energy.

As with any financial budget, put this all in writing, and recognise that your time and energy is at least as valuable as money, maybe more so.

9 — Assessment

How will you know whether you’ve fully achieved your objectives, and realised your vision?

The assessment stage is a checklist, based on your action statements. It is therefore, quite simple to set up, but also, often challenging to complete.

SMART is once again at the centre of this planning stage. If you’ve ensured that your objectives, and your action statements are SMART, then you’ve already created the basis for your assessment.

This is where you put your Action Statements to the question.

• Did I achieve the Specified outcome? (in general)
• Does the outcome Measure up to what I previously stated? This is quantified, largely by using the following question.
• Did I fully Achieve the outcome? (be brutally honest with yourself, and embrace any criticism/input from others) Can I genuinely say that an independent assessor would mark this outcome as 100% completed?
• Was my outcome Realistic in practice? (This assessment step helps with future planning)
• Did I achieve my outcome/sub-outcome on Time? If not, was it because I under-estimated the work needed, or was it performance related? i.e. Did I work hard and not finish, or was I lazy, or inconsistent?

That completes the overview of this strategic planning outline. As with any plan, what you get out of it, relates directly to what you put into it. Not only what you put into the planning, but how rigorously you follow your plan.

With that in mind, my recommendation, to you, and to myself, would be to begin by “planning low”. Don’t start out by challenging yourself beyond (or to the limits of) what you can accomplish fairly easily. Build your confidence with “easy” wins, before gradually upping the ante. As with most things, confidence is your strongest ally.

Well, as they say in the classics, “Th th th th that’s all Folks.”

I hope that you’ve all found this helpful. As I mentioned in Part 1, I’m still very much in the process of revising this outline for use in personal creative planning. If you have any ideas, I’d really love to hear them.

I hope to hear from many of you soon. Remember, if you want me to post an example plan next week, then tell me — soon. If I don’t hear from anyone by Sunday, I’ll move on to something else.

Thanks again for reading, and please do share, comment, recommend/like, and follow me on Medium if you haven’t already. You can see a bit more of my general creativity and art/photography on my RobinB Creative Facebook page.