Once
you set a goal and you make a plan, then you should set two types of milestones
– Process Milestones and Impact Milestones.
I notice that most people do not set milestones and when they do they
only set Process Milestones.
Process
Milestones are periodic check-in dates in which you look at your Action Plan to
see if all of the action steps are being followed. You can track these in various ways and even
use a tool like Microsoft Project if you have a complicated Action Plan with
lots of moving parts.
Impact
Milestones are periodic check-ins in which you look at the results that your
Action Plan is producing to see if you are on track with what you are expecting
the plan to produce. So, it is important
to ask yourself – once you set a plan – “what kinds of results should we be
seeing x, y, and z weeks/months out if the plan is working as we want it to?”
When
you do a Process Milestone check-in and discover that someone has not completed
their tasks properly then you need to investigate and put in a fix. Maybe it was a simple oversight and can be
corrected or maybe someone is overwhelmed and you need to reassign duties. Regardless, you may need to alter your plan
slightly to get back on track. FYI – it
is important to schedule these check-ins regularly so your plan does go way off
track without realizing it.
However,
if you are following your plan just as you had scheduled and you are missing
your Impact Milestones – not producing the results you want – THEN you have a
problem of a different kind. When people
do not set Impact Measures they are often surprised that everyone followed the
plan but – in the end – the results they wanted were not produced. You should know this much sooner!
What
do you do when you miss an Impact Milestone?
You need to investigate carefully.
You made certain assumptions about your plan when you set these
milestones. Are, perhaps, some of your assumptions
incorrect? If so, then maybe you need to
call a “timeout” and make a totally new plan.
So
often, leaders live in denial after crafting a wonderful plan (mostly their
ideas) and it is not working. Without
Impact Milestones, you will not know until it is too late. If you want to make a Mission Impact then you need Process and Impact Milestones to stay
on track.
For more ideas on how you can lead breakthroughs in your
organization, follow this blog and check out my web site. You will find free resources you can
download, including a Breakthrough Strategy Workbook that you can download at
no cost. You can also check out my book,
Mission Impact: Breakthrough Strategies
for Nonprofits, and buy it if you are interested. And you can follow Sheehan Nonprofit Consulting
on Facebook.
