EXECUTE Phase, Steps 7 & 8
Step 7 - Authorize the Work (Authorization)
After the Balancing step, the work thus finally selected is authorized for
the coming year. This process lists and sets aside requisite budget and resources
to carry out the selected work. This is not necessarily a guarantee that the work
will be funded because changes in business conditions or newly surfaced work during
the year could bump some authorized work off this approved list. However, all
things being equal, authorized work will be scheduled and executed during the
year.
Step 8 - Plan and Execute the Work (Activation)
Activation is the process of actually scheduling and executing the work throughout
the year. In this Activation step, managers build schedules to start and complete
as much of the approved work as possible. Operations and support staff are in
place at the start of the year and will be in place all year.
Obviously, you cannot start all projects at once at the beginning of the year
otherwise at some point everyone will be overloaded.
If did try to schedule all your projects to start at once, you would have to
hire more staff for the peak workload, and then have them idle during the slower
time. Hence, projects and other work need to be scheduled throughout the year
based on business urgency, availability of staff and/or the logical relationships
of outputs. Just as with resource leveling in project management, this is rather
like assembling a jigsaw where everything must fit together.
This Activation step should also contain a mini-Business Plan Process to account
for new and unexpected work that arises during the year. Such work also needs
to be selected, prioritized and authorized. If new work is authorized, it may
mean that some work that was previously authorized will need to be delayed or
even canceled.
So, Activation includes keeping track of old projects to track value metrics
and lifecycle costs, as well as keeping track of future work to ensure that all
work Authorizations and Activation is scheduled appropriately based on business
priorities and availability of staff.
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PLAN
Phase, Steps 5 & 6
