How to Deploy A Strategy Execution Plan

An execution plan is needed to deploy a strategy execution plan that will be executed according to your expectations.

Your ability to implement a strategy is what makes it a good one. Also, ensuring that it aligns with your organizational goals and objectives is vital to the successful execution of your strategy.

Strategy execution plan involves defined tactics and actions over a period with various roles and responsibilities, success metrics, actions and milestone deliverables.

It is a comprehensive plan that shows the objectives of strategy execution and how to achieve them, the people that will help achieve them and the time it will be achieved.

When a strategy is developed, it should become an extensive strategy execution plan. The strategy execution team is responsible for the deployment of the strategy execution plan. Here’s how to deploy a strategy execution plan.

Create An Execution Team

The execution team is responsible for developing an implementation plan and executing the strategy.

The execution team members are mostly line managers who perform the duties needed to achieve the strategy’s objectives, interpret the strategy and monitor the execution of the strategy and its performance.

The execution team is often made of more team members than the strategy team due to the processes.

For instance, a project organization can be created from an existing organizational structure to develop a strategy while the existing line organization will execute it.

The execution team often includes some organizational unit key managers who will execute important activities. Generally, most members of the execution team are also found in the strategy team and vice versa.

This way, the execution team can understand the assumptions and ideas behind the strategy. They can also get the strategy easy to execute when some of these ideas are proven to be wrong.

Write the Plan for Strategy Execution

After creating the strategy execution team, the first thing to do is writing the plan that will guide the strategy execution.

In many big organizations, a strategy execution plan is often interpreted into yearly organizational unit plans, which are the major focus of the strategic management cycle.

With this, the strategy execution plan becomes a regular management control system in such organizations.

The strategy execution plan deals with three major areas, including objectives of the strategy implementation, tasks and activities needed for implementation, and the roles and responsibilities needed to achieve the tasks. This plan can be achieved by the strategy team as they:

• Interpret the strategy into realistic but ambitious objectives
• Define activities and tasks that are needed to achieve the objectives
• Assigns roles and responsibilities for achieving the tasks
• Write a very short, concise and action-oriented strategy execution plan. This will include the actions to take, who will take these actions, when these actions should be taken, the results to be achieved and how to measure the progress.

Interpreting A Strategy into realistic but ambitious objectives

Interpreting the strategy’s objectives into feasible, measurable, concrete, and clear operational sub-objectives is the first step in deploying the strategy execution plan. These sub-objectives are often linked to individual and departmental goals as progress milestones are often established. Focusing on the intermediate milestones or goals is as important as focusing on the results of the strategy execution plan.

The strategy execution process often takes a long time before goals are achieved. So, there’s a need for the strategy to be shared into different planned steps with clear goals. With this, the end results will not become overwhelming for the organizational team.

Defining Activities and Tasks That Are Needed to Achieve The Objectives

One significant factor for a successful strategy execution plan is the clear interpretation of the individual steps needed to execute a strategy. If these steps are not clearly stated and specified according to the employee’s capabilities, implementing them becomes a problem.

If these key tasks and activities aren’t well-defined in clear details, they hinder successful implementation. When every team member identifies and understands their strategy implementation responsibilities, they will know what to do and what to achieve as an individual. This way, there will be a positive implementation performance because the team members know what to do to execute the strategy, thereby increasing their motivation and commitments. Managers will also be forced to be detailed about the strategy, unlike when there are no concrete and clear roles and activities.

Also, the strategy will become more concrete to organizational members and easier to communicate to external stakeholders.

A concrete strategy is much easier to understand, and the more concrete, the better. Organizational members tend to understand concrete ideas since they can be easily implemented, unlike abstract ideas.

Assigning Roles and Responsibilities For Achieving the Tasks

Strategy execution plan becomes effective when there are clear implementation activities, roles and responsibilities. Strategy execution plans can only become successful when members know what to do when to do it and at what cost.

As actions to implement strategies are being identified and planned, there should be allocations for these responsibilities. This will help in the successful result of the implementation.

When responsibilities are clearly defined, implementation control becomes easier as it helps management control the execution, and problems can be fixed quickly when milestones are not met.

It also creates certainty for the members as they’re aware of all that is happening and the situation of things. When members need appropriate guidance, they can easily meet the management or line managers.

When information is communicated well and authority is in place, people can feel competent and confident about their decisions without fear of likely repercussions. This helps them feel competent and highly motivated, increasing their performance as employees.

Writing a Very Short, Concise and Action-Oriented Strategy Execution Plan

After developing the strategy, the objectives and activities must be interpreted to every organizational unit that the strategy concerns.

Each unit must then clearly state their contribution towards the successful implementation of the strategy and how they want to do this. By the end of the year, the organizational unit then translates the strategy, and the organization’s activities and objectives are used to determine or measure the progress or success of the strategy.

In smaller organizations, the activities and objectives of an organizational unit may become part of the organization’s implementation plan. In this situation, the job of the execution team is to ensure that the team contributes to the strategy execution plan and ensure that the activities and objectives are not conflicting but complementary.

This is because departments tend to work against themselves in organizations with an effective organizational structure such as different units like Human resources, operations, marketing and finance e.t.c. and each department will be fighting to improve their performance instead of the performance of the entire organization.