Key Takeaways

  • An operational plan outlines the daily activities, resources, and responsibilities needed to achieve a company’s strategic goals.
  • Strong plans detail objectives, timelines, resources, and accountability across departments.
  • Creating an effective plan requires clear goals, measurable KPIs, realistic timelines, and resource allocation.
  • Steps include: developing a strategic plan, prioritizing goals, selecting leading indicators, drawing on organizational input, and ensuring transparent communication.
  • Modern best practices emphasize aligning with strategy, monitoring performance, fostering adaptability, and leveraging technology for efficiency.
  • Operational plans can be short-term or long-term, but all should be regularly reviewed and updated.
  • Tools like dashboards, project management software, and cross-department planning sessions help maintain clarity and accountability.

Steps in how to do an operational plan should incorporate the following as you outline your strategy:

  1. Develop a strategic plan.
  2. Prioritize your goals.
  3. Use leading indicators.
  4. Draw on your organization.
  5. Communication is key.

What Is an Operational Plan?

An operational plan outlines the tasks each employee will need to carry out to accomplish the goals laid out in the strategic plan. The operations section of a business plan expands on the company:

  • Objectives.
  • Timeline.
  • Procedures.

In other words, your operational plan should, clearly and in detail, elaborate on the physical, financial, and human resources you will allocate on a day-to-day basis in support of your company's broader strategic objectives.

Types of Operational Plans

Operational plans can vary depending on an organization’s needs and timeframe. Common types include:

  • Single-use plans: Developed for unique, one-time projects such as launching a new product.
  • Ongoing plans: Used for recurring operations like customer service, HR processes, or compliance.
  • Short-term plans: Typically cover up to one year and focus on immediate goals.
  • Long-term plans: Extend over multiple years, aligning with strategic goals but broken into annual milestones.

Understanding the right type of operational plan ensures resources are structured around both current and future objectives.

Creating an Effective Operational Plan

The best operational plans have a clearly articulated objective that everyone in your company is focused on achieving. Your operational plan will, therefore, be a useful document for your investors. However, it can also help you and your employees by encouraging you to think carefully about deadlines and tactics.

The operations plan should provide answers to the following questions:

  • Which personnel and departments are responsible?
  • What tasks is each employee or department responsible for?
  • Where precisely will daily operations occur?
  • How much should be budgeted to each department to complete these tasks?
  • What are the deadlines for the completion of each task?

An operational plan must have clearly articulated goals. This section should state in clear terms what the company's operational objectives are. Operational objectives should be thought of as your plan to achieve your company's strategic objective. A good operational objective should be:

  • Measurable.
  • Specific.
  • Timely.
  • Realistic.

While each department should have a different operational objective, these should assist in achieving the company's overall objective.

Once you have generated objectives, you must create a strategic plan to meet them. Each department or team must be appropriately resourced. You should think about the following resources:

  • Suppliers.
  • Appropriate equipment and technology.
  • Each department's budget.

In addition to describing the production process, you should describe the operating process in detail. Questions you should answer include:

  • Where will employees be working, and will you need to find additional facilities?
  • Will employees have a set work schedule or flexible hours?
  • Which employees are tasked with ensuring each department completes its objectives?

Key Components of an Operational Plan

Every strong operational plan should address:

  1. Objectives – Clear, measurable goals that link to the strategic plan.
  2. Actions – Specific tasks, processes, and workflows assigned to departments or individuals.
  3. Resources – Financial, technological, and human capital required to execute the plan.
  4. Performance Indicators – KPIs and leading indicators that track progress and guide adjustments.
  5. Accountability – Roles, responsibilities, and ownership across teams.
  6. Timeline – Deadlines, milestones, and review periods to keep progress on track.

By including these elements, organizations ensure their operational plan is not just a document but a roadmap for execution.

Steps to Create a Strong Operational Plan

  1. Develop a Strategic Plan: You should already have a strong strategic plan in place before you begin developing an operational plan since the operational plan is the roadmap to achieving your strategic objectives.
  2. Prioritize Your Goals: The simpler an operations plan is, the more likely it is to succeed. Avoid creating an overly complicated operations plan by prioritizing your goals and focusing on the most important ones. Focus on three to five initiatives that are likely to contribute to your long-term goals; then develop metrics that can measure your performance.
  3. Use Leading Indicators: It is important to choose the appropriate key performance indicators, or KPIs. Leading indicators, or predictive measurements that help you to project into the future, are more useful than lagging indicators or measurements of the past, as they help you make adjustments as you go.
  4. Draw on Your Organization: The KPIs you choose will be a critical component of the entire organization's work over the next year. Instead of developing them in a vacuum, you should try to draw on as many points of view within your team as possible. For example, you could hold an annual planning session that encourages team collaboration and discussion to develop your KPIs. Ideally, you should include enough diverse perspectives to strengthen the outcome, but without having too many voices that decision-making becomes unwieldy.
  5. Communication Is Key: It is critical that the entire organization understands why your KPIs were chosen, how they will help you to achieve your objectives, and what each employee's role is in working towards your stated objectives. Therefore, you should create a designated time at the beginning of each year to share your KPIs with your entire organization and get feedback. Getting your team's buy-in is critical, and for this reason, the importance of communication truly cannot be overstated. Additionally, each employee should have the means to track his or her progress toward his or her personal KPIs, whether that is through a dashboard, regular meetings, or some other mechanism.

Best Practices for Operational Planning

To make an operational plan effective, consider the following best practices:

  • Align with strategy: Ensure all activities directly contribute to organizational goals.
  • Involve stakeholders: Engage employees and managers in planning to increase buy-in.
  • Foster adaptability: Plans should be flexible enough to adjust for market shifts or internal changes.
  • Leverage technology: Use project management and performance tracking tools to monitor progress in real time.
  • Review regularly: Conduct quarterly or annual reviews to refine objectives, reallocate resources, and celebrate successes.

Embedding these practices helps maintain operational efficiency while keeping teams focused on long-term success.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is the main purpose of an operational plan?
    An operational plan ensures day-to-day activities align with a company’s strategic goals by defining tasks, timelines, and resource allocation.
  2. How long should an operational plan cover?
    Plans can be short-term (under a year) or long-term (up to several years), depending on the organization’s needs and strategy.
  3. Who is responsible for creating an operational plan?
    Usually, senior managers or department heads develop operational plans, but effective ones involve input from multiple levels of staff.
  4. How often should an operational plan be updated?
    Plans should be reviewed regularly—quarterly or annually—to stay aligned with business changes and market conditions.
  5. What tools can help manage an operational plan?
    Project management software, KPI dashboards, and performance tracking tools are commonly used to improve execution and accountability.

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