Tactical planning is rooted in the realities of the everyday life of your organization. Your abilities and your limitations. They breakdown your strategic goals into the daily grind of action steps. It doesn’t sound sexy or inspiring does it? The truth is, tactical plans provide an immense amount of freedom, comfort and empowerment. As we’ve discussed before, sometimes organizations are so worried about issues they can feel overwhelmed and frozen in place.

Tactical plans break down fears into action steps. They also take the great goals from strategic planning and ensure they get accomplished.

Organizations have lots of different things they need to juggle: operations, programming, fundraising, governance. Tactical plans help to break down the urgent to the not-so-urgent, recognizing what needs to get done now and what can be planned, delegated or dropped, allowing the organization to focus on the most immediate actions. 

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in accomplishing tasks is accountability. Boards need to have honest conversations about who is willing and able to take on tasks and when the task is due. Board members are volunteers with the pressures and pleasures of everyday life. Sometimes working on organizational tasks is the first thing to get dropped when life gets busy. Having a discussion that lays out an understanding of ability, time frame and accountability early and often, keeps everyone in check with the opportunity to adjust if needed.

Would you like more information about board development, tactical planning and more? Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions you may have at jennifer@urbanaskew.com.