Moving from planning to implementation strategy, it's easy to focus on the end goal and never look back - or forward beyond launch. That type of focus and momentum helps drive your implementation strategy.
As you move ahead with determination, however, here's an important tip: look ahead to all the people, processes, and resources you will need for support when what you are preparing to implement is ready to implement. If you ignore the important step of giving heads up notifications to key people, you risk delivering a great “whatever it is you're developing” without the support necessary for success.
15 Questions to Identify Heads Up People in Your Implementation Strategy
If the plan behind your implementation strategy identifies all the "heads ups" you need, that's fantastic.
Planners often aren’t thinking about all the implementation tasks, though. They may have neglected to identify everyone that needs to know what you're implementing.
To figure out who needs heads up notifications, here are 15 questions we use to stimulate strategic thinking about the people that need to know what’s going on before it happens:
- Who will need to provide resources to complete it?
- Who will forget that they once supported doing this?
- Who will evaluate whether it was a good decision to do or not?
- Who can put a roadblock in the way of doing this?
- Who will finance development and implementation?
- Who needs to support it to ensure it happens?
- Who will make it?
- Who will regulate it?
- Who owns the products and promotions this will need to integrate with more closely?
- Who will communicate about it?
- Who will help create demand for this?
- Who will need to explain what it is and the benefits?
- Who will sell it?
- Who will provide training about it, no matter the audience?
- Who will service / fix it?
That's a lot of questions. It may be too many for you (if you know the names of most of the people from the start) or not nearly enough (if your initiative is particularly complex).
Either way, use the most helpful questions from this list to ensure you generate a thorough list of names. Include all of them in your project management steps and people will be better ready to support you when you need it! – Mike Brown
What does your future strategy hold?
If you are trying to prepare your organization for an uncertain future, contact us. We can design in-person and online collaboration exercises to get as ready as possible for big changes in and around your organization! – Mike Brown
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