A new year is fast approaching and many of us are inclined to think about new beginnings and set goals. At this time of year, we are encouraged to make resolutions that we hope will inspire us to focus, break bad habits, distance ourselves from negative people, and develop a structure that will become a launching pad for a positive and prosperous New Year. An Action Plan can be a particularly useful tool to guide and encourage the process.

To get started, review your long-term goals (perhaps you developed them last December or January?) and pick three that stand out as priorities that serve your short-term focus. they will become your focus goals. Ideally, you will select goals that can substantially impact the success of your personal and/or professional life. Examples of potentially useful career focus goals include:

• Operational changes that streamline the way your business delivers services
• Changes to customer service, such as improvements to the billing system
• Hiring an intern or an employee, as a means of increasing productivity and revenue
• Lead generation initiatives, such as a monthly newsletter or weekly blog
• Marketing campaign designed to improve sales or upsell opportunities

I suggest you limit your focus goals to a maximum of three, so you don’t get overwhelmed. The idea is to have a positive impact on your organization within 90 days.

If you have a leadership team that shares decision making, be sure to include them in your selection of focus objectives. It is important to include other perspectives when determining which objectives will be prioritized. In addition, the Action Plan will be less successful if you fail to engage the leadership team and gain buy-in for your goals and implementation.

Once you and your team have determined the focus goals, agree on what results will constitute your successful achievement. What will indicate that you have crossed the finish line? Those results will become your criteria for success, milestones that can be measured objectively and quantitatively.

Give yourself two to four success criteria for each of your focus goals. Examples of top-level, quantifiable markers of success might include:

• A task from a new client
• A marketing campaign that has been launched.
• A new operational efficiency is in place
• An employee or intern who has agreed to a start date
• A process for attracting new high-ranking leads that is ready to go

Also identify a key performance indicator (KPI) for each focus goal, so you can easily confirm that you’re on track to meet that goal, and also give you time to consider improvements to your Action Plan, if needed.

For example, if hiring an intern or employee is a focus goal, then completing the first round of interviews with three or four candidates by a given date would be a useful KPI. If improvements to your billing system involved the purchase of new software, the purchase of that software by a certain date would represent a quantifiable KPI.

The last step in developing your One Page Action Plan is to create action steps for focus goals and choose reasonable completion dates. Consider what you can or must do to substantially impact each one. Then, with your leadership team, decide who will “own” and take responsibility for carrying out each action step.

Thank you for reading,

Kim