BSBMGT517 MANAGE OPERATIONAL PLAN PDF

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BSBMGT517 MANAGE OPERATIONAL PLAN
Assessment 1
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BSBMGT517 MANAGE OPERATIONAL PLAN ASSESSMENT 1 QUESTION 1. What is an Operational plan? Explain in your words the importance of having an operational plan. ANSWER 1. An operational plan can be defined as a plan prepared by a component of an organization that clearly defines actions it will take to support the strategic objectives and plans of upper management. The importance of operational plan is that it provides organization’s personnel with a clear picture of their tasks and responsibilities in line with the goals and objectives contained within the Strategic Plan. Reference – www.leiisaac.com QUESTION 2. Operational plan have many elements. List down 5 – 7 of those elements. ANSWER 2. The elements of operational plan are as follows: 1) Set major, measurable objectives that are clearly linked – Avoid establishing objectives that don’t support your strategy. 2) Create measurable goals that support major objectives – Ensure that success can be directly impacted by staff and management. 3) Set up clear accountability and timeframes – Specify who is responsible for each objective and goal, and the deadline. 4) Know the anticipated impact on financial performance – Project expected changes to revenue or expenses related to each goal and their effects on financials. 5) Articulate contingencies for goals with significant potential financial impacts – Identify actions that would be taken if actual results begin to stray significantly. 6) Regularly monitor progress – Continually keep your strategic priorities and related objectives and goals front and centre. Reference – www.cuinsight.com

QUESTION 3. What are the resources that will be required to manage and implement an operational plan? Provide 3 and give details. ANSWER 3. The resources required are as follows:1) Human Resources: - Human Resources include Team Leaders, Staff, Managers, etc. Every operational plan must have an ‘owner’ i.e. somebody who is responsible for the implementation of the strategy. If someone is not made responsible for the plan, it is highly likely that it will not

be implemented. The plan may be just allocated to one person or to a group of people e.g. a team of people, a sub - committee or a department. 2) Physical Resources: - Physical Resources includes stock, supplies, finances, etc. needed to make and implement and operational plan. Along with this resource, documentation is also equally necessary to keep the record of stocks levels, stock storage capabilities, supplier records, finances used in buying the supplies. 3) Financial Resources: - Not every strategy requires money, but most of them will. If people have to be paid to do work, than there will be financial resources needed for remuneration. Many strategies will involve administration costs in the form of telephone calls, printing, postages, purchase of supplies or material, or promotional cost such as advertising.

QUESTION 4. Who will you be consulting with develop and/or implement an operational plan? Who would be your stakeholders? ANSWER 4. Depending on a person’s level of authority and role in the organization, you may need to consult with a wide range of people in an organization. They are:    

Employees, employees representatives or unions Colleagues and/or managers at the same level or above Senior managers and/or your supervisors People with specialist responsibilities such as occupational health and safety committees, or training and development teams.

The stakeholders will be as follows:    

Employees Managers CEOs Customers Suppliers

QUESTION 5. What consultation processes will you use so that stakeholders will have the opportunity to contribute to the operational plan? ANSWER 5. The consultation processes are as follows: 

Meetings – Discussion of issues can be done as an agenda item during a regular meeting and asking the stakeholders to provide their views.

Special Meetings can also be held for selected people with the sole focus on addressing issues related to operational planning needs.

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Interviews – Interviews can be done one – on – one with the team. These can be done face – to – face of over phone. There should be a defined set of questions when asking about a particular aspect of the planning. Brainstorming – Setting up on open forum where people provide input and ideas on given issues is another process. A key part of this approach is that no analysis or negative judgment of any ideas should occur. Whereas, within an organization, smaller groups should be made where each addresses specific issues. Each group reports back to the whole team, which provide additional ideas to the ideas presented.

QUESTION 6. Write 5 guidelines to develop key performance indicators (KPIs). ANSWER 6. Following are the guidelines for developing KPIs. 1) Lifecycle Approach: - KPIs may be developed using a lifecycle approach. For e.g. in managing a project, KPIs would focus on each stage of the project life cycle such as design, planning, implementation and finalization. The use of a lifecycle approach to developing KPIs ensures they are assigned at all stages of the lifecycle from start to end. 2) Cause and effect: - A suggested approach is to examine specific area of concern using the cause and effect technique. This technique helps identify KPIs for addressing the fundamental or underlying cause of ineffective or inefficient services, functions or activities. The approach analyses the cause(s) and identifies KPIs that address the effect. By addressing the effect, improvements can generally be achieved. 3) Statutory and regulatory requirements: - It may be appropriate to focus the selection of KPIs on statutory and regulatory requirements and obligations. For e.g. A KPI could be developed that requires the appropriate authority to undertake a regular audit to assess compliance with the legislation. 4) Risk – based approach: - The risk – based approach identifies those specific services, functions or activities that may have a negative or detrimental impact on an organization. By identifying areas of risk, KPIs can be used to measure progress towards mitigating the risk. 5) Levels: - Organizations can assign KPIs at two levels. Strategic and Operational KPIs. Strategic KPI address the measurement required at the higher level in the organization and take a top – down approach. Whereas, Operational KPI should be approached from ground up.

QUESTION 7. Provide 3 possible areas where intellectual property should be considered in the management and implementation of operational plans. Explain each of these areas. ANSWER 7. The areas where intellectual property should be considered in the management and implementation of operational plans are as follows: -

1) Patented processes: - A patent is a mechanism which provides some legal protection for and inventor of a product or process. In terms of managing and implementing operational plans, it is important to ensure that any processes used in the manufacturing of products or delivery of services do not breach any current patents. 2) Trademarks: - These are protected under the Trade Marks Act 1995, which requires an application for a right to be granted. The legislation provides a range of protections for the owner of the registered mark such as preventing competitors from using a similar name for a product or service that are also alike. 3) Contractors: - Copyright law must also be considered in terms of work performed by independent contractors. Copyright ownership of a creative work produced by an employee will rest with the employing organization, but in the case of an independent contractor, this ownership will automatically rest with the contractor unless a specific clause is inserted in the contract that assigns ownership copyright to the hirer. This should be considered while implementing an operational plan depending that whether independent contractor is hired or not.

QUESTION 8. Legislations exist for the following subjects. Find the actual name of each of the 3 legislations. ANSWER 8.   

Workplace Health and Safety – Workplace Health and Safety Act 2011 Privacy – Privacy Act 1988 Anti – discrimination – Racial Discrimination Act 1975

QUESTION 9. Organizations may encounter many risks. Identify 5 possible risks. ANSWER 9. The risks that the organization may encounter includes:1) 2) 3) 4)

Competitors’ actions such as the release of the new or cheaper products. Staff shortage due to sudden illness or loss/departure. Price and cost changes due to increased costs of inputs or unexpected salary increases. Environmental impacts caused by storms, floods, power failure, water shortages, drought and heat waves. 5) Customer/client behavior such as changes in spending habits or satisfaction ratings.

QUESTION 10. What is a Contingency Plan? Write down the contingency measures for the risks give in question 9.

ANSWER 10. A contingency plan is a course of action designed to help an organization respond effectively to a significant future event or situation that may or may not happen. A contingency plan is sometimes referred to as “PLAN B”; because it can be also used as an alternative for action if expected results fail to materialize. The contingency measures for risks stated above are as follows:1) Seeking lower cost inputs like changing suppliers, producing goods offshore or outsourcing the production to cheaper producers. 2) Hire new staff or longer hours for the existing ones. 3) Refinancing, extension of time on payments or obtaining loans and line of credit. Potential investors or partners can also be obtained. 4) Setting up an offsite work location, transferring phone – lines and contacting large customers to let them know when their orders or services will be delivered. 5) Increase in the range of products and services produced or have the flexibility to adjust in order to reduce the reliance on a small range of products and services.

QUESTION 11. Who would you need to approve your operational plan? Why do we need their approval and how would you obtain it? ANSWER 11. Unless you are the owner of a small private company, you will have a supervisor or a board of directors that expect you to report to them about planning processes. They need to approve your plans and you may well have to make appropriate presentations to them. We need their approval because when an operational plan is formally signed off by the people with delegated authority, it is at this stage that the finalized plan becomes a policy. Signed copies of the plan should be kept on file as a formal record and provided to the appropriate parties responsible for implementing the plan. Approval can be obtained by presenting the plan to the stakeholders and making relevant changes by gaining the feedback from them....