Overview

If strategic planning is all about setting out a long-term destination for your club, and project planning is about allocating resources, then operational planning entails achieving short term goals along the way. Operational planning is about the here and now, rather than the end point.

This chapter will give you a couple of simple ideas and tools that will help you not just set those short-term goals more effectively but also save time with daily operational tasks through the use of technology.

Setting actions, goals and performance targets 

When writing goals or targets, it really helps to be clear on what success looks like and how you are going to measure it. A goal that is ambiguous, undefined or too ‘loose’ really isn’t of much use to you or your club.

Apply the SMART filter to your goal – is it specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time based? If it meets these criteria, can you stretch it to achieve a bit more than the bare minimum?

If no one has accountability for the goal once it is set, it will most likely drift along or get forgotten. By assigning people to tasks you’ll not only have a better chance of achieving the goal but you’ll also pretty quickly see if one person is overloaded. This won’t set up the goal, or the person, for success.

Finally, apply the traffic light system to reporting so you have a quick and graphic way of seeing what goal is going well, what goal is not and what goal might need more resources.

Read more in the Actions and goals section.

Using technology to support your operations

Clubs should always be looking for ways to support their volunteers by saving time and effort. There are many digital tools easily available to clubs that allow you to spend more time on delivering services rather than wrestling with old, time consuming systems.

This resource will cover topics such as using the cloud, financial management tools, online payments, social media, digital volunteer and membership management, websites, fundraising and cyber security.

Find out more in the section: Finding efficiencies