Establish clear, realistic timelines
Knowing how to prioritize your actions constitutes another aspect of applying your strategic thinking skills. In any business situation—whether it's managing a project, planning your day, making a decision, or solving a problem—you can spend your time and energy in an almost infinite number of ways.
Think about the goals you want to accomplish and the strategic initiatives you're managing. Create clear, realistic timelines for achieving these objectives. The more realistic your timeline, the better your chance of avoiding the chaos and inefficient use of resources that occur when people set impossible schedules.
To establish a realistic timeline for a strategic initiative:
- Estimate the length of time each phase will take. Create a chart or diagram depicting the time needed for each phase. Calculate the time required to carry out the entire effort.
- Compare your individual and total time estimates to the time required on similar efforts that have been completed. Do your estimates seem realistic? Do you need to add contingency time in the schedule to accommodate potential delays? Where might it be possible to tighten up the schedule to liberate time for another phase of the initiative?
- Identify phases that can't be completed until other phases are complete. These represent potential bottlenecks in the process.
- After making any necessary revisions to your timeline, ask several colleagues or members or your team to examine the schedule and identify potential problems with it. Also consult people who will be implementing various aspects of the initiative, as well as customers, suppliers, and other external stakeholders. They can offer additional valuable insight into potential problems with your timeline.
- After gathering a wide range of input, develop solutions to identified problems and create a final version of your timeline.