Best Practice Library: Top 5 Tips to Building Your Plan

“Measure twice, cut once” - 19th Century Proverb

The tips provided in this article are based on the successful implementation of hundreds of plans in the Envisio system. They are the first set of tips we offer you from our library of best practice guidance along your journey. 

1. Keep it simple

Communication is at the forefront of this tip. Think about what you need to communicate to your elected officials and to your public, but also about the users providing updates to your plan. Build a plan that will be manageable for your users to update. Each plan element requires an update on an ongoing cadence, so you don’t want to get too granular. Some ways to keep your plan simple:

• Group items together as part of a checklist under one plan element. 

• Link plan elements to each other using the cloning feature so that updates only have to be made once.

2. Define the number of plan levels

Decide early on. Remember tip #1, to keep things simple? Whenever possible, we recommend building a 3-level plan in Envisio. An additional level will add another layer of updates for your users and more maintenance by System Admins.

If you identify the need an additional level, this is something that should be decided very early on in the building process, as it is not possible to delete a level in a plan or copy from a plan with a different number of levels. 

If you are unsure about whether you need a 3- or 4-level plan, try building two versions in the system for just one pillar of your plan (e.g. from the highest level to the bottom level for only one area). Compare the two versions, getting feedback from colleagues, before you commit.

3. Make it S.M.A.R.T.

SMART actions should be the lowest level of your plan; your 3rd level as suggested in tip #2.

When defining your SMART Actions:

• Use short term, focused time frames

• Focus on projects and program

• What are you already doing?

• Consider resources

• Look for priority projects within program

Plans left at a high-level without SMART actions that can be accomplished are destined to sit on a shelf. 

4. KPI alignment (aka performance measures)

Tracking the progress and performance of your plan is one of the #1 reasons your organization has invested in Envisio. Having performance measures with visual charts and graphs, linked to your plan elements, help to tell the story of your progress and share your performance with the world.

Use this spreadsheet to help align the KPI to the priority, strategy or action.

5. Multi-year plans

If you have plans that span multiple years, there are two options to get them into the system:

1. Entire plan lifespan
   The first option is to build one Envisio plan for the duration of your entire plan lifespan. You can easily add additional lowest level plan elements as more are defined in future years, however as new actions are added, note that the % of progress will roll back slightly, compensating for the additional work to be done. It will be important to consider the reporting needs and structure of large plans, to ensure your stakeholders will be able to get the information they need as the plan progresses through the years.

2. Breaking the plan into smaller time frames
   The second option is to break your plan into smaller time frames (e.g. for a ten year strategic plan, you may want to have ten annual plans or five two-year plans) in the system. You can copy from the existing plan to roll over plan elements from one time frame to the next. This allows you to focus the operational requirements to reach your plan goals over that specific time period and ensures simplified reporting and performance measurement throughout the years.