Activity 27
Action planning
Overview
Action planning sits at the heart of category management and forms a structured approach to driving progress through the process. It is based on a simple tabulated capturing and monitoring/review of activities and tasks that members of the category management team need to complete along the journey.
Arguably this activity is not exclusive to Stage 5 but should be employed through each stage of the category management process. Indeed, if you have engaged external third-party consultants to support your development and implementation of a new category strategy, then you will no doubt be subjected to this coordinated approach of identifying and delegating actions across the organisation. Even though the consultants can overdo this in their eagerness to justify their fees, the practice is still good. Category management can be a lengthy, drawn-out process and it is easy for internal teams to ‘lose their way’ without organised, transparent accountability of actions, tasks and deliverables.
It is strongly recommended that a templated approach be used and that this document be kept ‘live’ within the shared folder that the category team accesses.
Elements
The action plan template is simple, effective and intuitive. A brief description of each of its elements can be found in Figure 5.3.
So what?
As already indicated, action planning can be overdone by external consultants eager to generate a show of progress for their consulting fees. However, as a general practice, action planning is a good habit for a category team to develop. It maintains focus on the short-term, immediate activities and tasks that need to be completed, in addition to creating ‘visibility’ of progress for the wider team.
Action planning is essential for the category manager to maintain momentum and keep the team (and the wider stakeholder organisation) motivated towards progress.
Category management application
- Creates visibility, transparency and accountability for individual activities and tasks
- Provides a practical, structured approach for getting tasks completed
- Prevents loss of focus and maintains motivation towards short-term goals
- Provides easy and effective project management discipline throughout the team
- Helps prevent complacency
Limitations
Action planning can become overrated and ‘project manager’ types, who have little else to do other than fill in and review templates, obsessive. Arguably if more time was spent on doing category management rather than filling in action plan templates, then progress could be a lot quicker and more efficient.
Another limitation is the assumption that completing the action plan template is tantamount to having the action delivered and complete. In other words, the action plan itself does not get the progress achieved.
That said, action planning is a simple and effective discipline that all category teams should adopt, but it must be seen as a ‘facilitator’ of delivery rather than as the panacea of progress!
Template
The following template may be used to support action planning:
- Template 27: Action planning