Operational Planning Course

Management. Lift your career and your organisation.

COVID-19 update: arrangement of our courses

We are now delivering courses online and in-person. Please check the delivery format of each class before enrolling.

Please note that course materials (excluding prescribed texts) are shared electronically within 48 hours of course commencement. Printing is not available.

Learn the concepts, skills and knowledge required to develop and implement an effective operational plan – one that supports and achieves the strategic objectives of your organisation.

Using a structured systematic approach, this one-day course will show you how to turn strategic goals into specific sequenced activities. You will learn how to allocate appropriate resources and how to budget and allocate time to these activities. You will also learn how to allocate your team members to appropriate tasks, building team capability.

In building your operational plan, you will learn how to consult with appropriate stakeholders. Utilising your stakeholders and a range of other strategies you will also learn how to identify the risks associated with the plan and develop comprehensive contingency plans.

Apart from developing an operational plan, you will learn how to implement the plan and ensure that appropriate monitoring processes are in place to ensure that underperformance is identified quickly and rectified.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• develop operational plans
• consulting with stakeholders
• plan for and allocate resources
• allocate appropriate costing and time frames to the plan
• match team member capability and build that capability over time
• identify risks and develop contingency plans
• monitor performance aspects of the plan.

Content

Operational planning

• What is operational planning
• Converting strategy into operational plans
• Effective planning concepts
• Consulting with stakeholders
• Setting SMART objectives

Developing operational plans

• Developing activities to achieve the objectives
• Sequencing the activities and allocating time frames
• Allocating resources
• Setting budgets

Risk and contingency plans

• Identifying risks
• Analysing risk
• Treating risks and developing contingency plans
• Monitoring risk

The team

• Assigning activities to appropriate team members
• Matching capabilities
• Building capability in the team
• Procuring human resources

Implementing the plan

• Monitoring performance
• Rectifying underperformance
• Variations to the plan
• Reporting requirements
• Managing the team

Intended audience

Designed to suit those who are moving into or those that are relatively new to the operational planning arena. It will also be of benefit to those who are involved with operational planning and are after some clarification and direction to improve their operational planning and implementation skills.

Prerequisites

None

Delivery modes

• Face-to-face, presenter-taught workshop
• Online workshop via the platform Zoom

Delivery style

The Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) states that one of the most valuable resources in adult education is the learner themselves. This course has been designed to actively involve the learner throughout the day. It includes:

• interactive presentations
• group work and discussions
• structure sequence of operational planning activities
• operational and strategic planning case studies.

Recommended reading

There are numerous articles on the internet regarding operational planning, but they do not have much substance and offer planning tips rather than a structured process of how to create an operational plan. The best texts on planning are based on project planning which is similar but different to operational planning. Two excellent texts are:

Hartley, S 2018, Project Management: A practical guide to planning and managing project, A&U Academic.

Pearson, N, Larson, E and Gray, C 2018, Project Management in Practice, McGraw-Hill Education Australia.