Operational planning (OP) is the process of planning strategic goals and objectives to

technical goal Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical analysis, a discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data * Technical drawing, showing how something is c ...

s and objectives. It describes milestones, conditions for success and explains how, or what portion of, a

strategic plan Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to attain strategic goals. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the st ...

will be put into operation during a given operational period, in the case of commercial application, a fiscal year or another given budgetary term. An operational plan is the basis for and justification of an annual operating budget request. Therefore, a five-year

would typically require five operational plans funded by five operating budgets. Operational plans should establish the activities and budgets for each part of the organization for the next 1–3 years. They link the strategic plan with the activities the organization will deliver and the resources required to deliver them. An operational plan draws directly from agency and program strategic plans to describe agency and program missions and goals, program objectives, and program activities. Like a strategic plan, an operational plan addresses four questions: *Where are we now? *Where do we want to be? *How do we get there? *How do we measure our progress? The operations plan is both the first and the last step in preparing an operating budget request. As the first step, the operations plan provides a plan for resource allocation; as the last step, the OP may be modified to reflect policy decisions or financial changes made during the budget development process. Operational plans should be prepared by the people who will be involved in implementation. There is often a need for significant cross-departmental dialogue as plans created by one part of the organization inevitably have implications for other parts. Operational plans should contain: *clear objectives of them *activities to be delivered *quality standards *desired outcomes *staffing and resource requirements *implementation timetables *a process for monitoring progress

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Operational Planning Business planning Business terms Business process

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