In addition, owners needed to be assigned so that responsibility for each action step was clear. Finally, target outcomes needed to be established for each action step so that owners know toward what results they are driving. This action planning tool (.xls) was designed to help the Senior Management Team think through all of these issues. We created a separate action planning tool for each pillar of the strategic plan. Within each of these, we created a tab for each of the goals within that pillar. On each tab, strategies within that goal should be listed along with the corresponding action steps. In the version linked here, we have left the tabs and rows blank so they can be adapted for use in your district.

For each action step, we asked the Senior Management Team to answer the following questions:

1. Who should be the owner of this action step (in other words, who will be responsible for implementing the action step?) This will require the team to determine whether to assign an existing staff member, reallocate a portion of the time of an existing staff member, or hire entirely new staff. 
2. In the "New Infrastructure/Tools Needed" column, enter any new infrastructure, technology, or tools that will be needed to complete this action step.
3. In the "New Funding Needed" column, enter any new funding that will be needed to complete this action step.
4. Once the owner has been assigned, he or she should then determine what the desired outcome(s) is(are) for this action step. These outcomes can either be quantitative or qualitative.
5. The owner should then develop a detailed step-by-step plan for accomplishing the action step. There are four blank rows below each action step, but more can be inserted as needed (select the row either right below or above where you want to insert a new row, right click, and choose “Insert 1 above” or “Insert 1 below” from the menu).

The timing of the action steps will, in many cases, be informed by the prioritization tool.