Implementing the Decision

Ideally, your team members will leave the final meeting knowing exactly what they’re expected to do.

Your group has made a choice, and you’ve communicated the decision to the appropriate people. Now its time to identify the tasks that will be required to put the decision into action, assign resources, and establish deadlines. Ideally, your team members will leave the final meeting knowing exactly what they’re expected to do. If not, reconvene the group to identify who will be responsible for each task.

You probably have much of the information you need to develop the plan for implementing your group’s decision. When you were evaluating alternatives, you likely considered the cost, the number of people required to work on the project, and so forth.

For example, suppose you and your group have determined that the customer complaints about your telephone support lien are due to inadequate training of the support associates talking calls. After analyzing the situation, you may decide that the associates need to have more product knowledge. As part of evaluating this alternative, you probably would have identified the resource requirements from the training department to implement your solution.

ACTION POINT: But be sure to assign reasonable tasks with sufficient resources. For example the people in the training department may not have extensive product knowledge and may need the help of a content expert. You might need to assign an expert in product knowledge to work with the training department to develop a program.