Work Plans

Once you have set your goals it is important that you organize yourself and your team to accomplish those goals. So the questions are: How do you organize your work? Do you have a Task List or do you utilize a To Do List or both? Do you use a calendar to plan forward? Do you think things through before you get started on a project? The beauty of a Work Plan is that it takes in the best elements of all of these organizing devices. A Work Plan outlines how you will accomplish your goals, what order you will do things in, who will be responsible for what, and puts a timeline to the project. A Work Plan describes what will be rather than what was.

In the creation of your Work Plan you will want to identify the goal you are working toward, jot down a list of who will be working with you, and list any special materials, equipment or other special needs. Once this is accomplished you will want to break down your plan for achieving your goal into specific actions and tasks. Each of these tasks may have a number of indicators that will serve as benchmarks for you to be sure that you are on the right track and trajectory to complete the goal. If some of these tasks are to be completed by others you will want to include how often and when progress will be monitored. Finally you will want to put dates to each of the tasks to ensure that you are on time to meet your goals.

Here is a sample of the beginnings of a Work Plan.

Goal: Achieve 115% of yearly ADA target by December 31, 2010. (If you are wondering why the target would be 115% of the yearly ADA, the answer is that in many programs during the last month of school it is very challenging to get 100% ADA and this way, the program would be ahead of the game.)

Activity	Measure of Success	Time Frame	Team Members
Send out Phone-Vite to all 6th graders	50 phone calls referencing the Phone-Vite	August 20-31	Sally Jorge
Set up table in front of school for days 1-5 of school—distribute information about program	Distribute 30 packets and have 20% of them result in student enrollment in program	August 26-30	Julie Martin
Conduct activities at lunch time weekly on Wednesday	Conduct1 Fear Factor event each Wednesday at lunch—distribute 20 enrollment packets, 20% result in student enrollment in program	September—4 Wednesdays	Student Street Team Self Martin
Follow-up with students who come only 1 day	Check-up on each absentee within 24 hours of absence—50% of students return to program	September, 2010	Assigned Program Leader

If you don’t currently use a Work Plan, I encourage you to try it and see how much you accomplish!

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