An Action Plan Calendar is a list of activities that the community is going to conduct, coordinate or participate in, displayed in calendar format.
An activity without a due date is just an aspiration, so dates need to be assigned to each activity and a calendar is a simple and familiar format to plan those activities and communicate those dates.
You can use any kind of online calendar to plan and display your activities. All the major collaboration platforms include calendars, or you can use one of the many available calendar apps.
As the name implies, Action Plan Calendar is a list of activities that the community is going to conduct, coordinate or participate in, displayed in calendar format. It is a simple and familiar format that your Core Team, your Core Group, and your members can easily relate to.
Why create an Action Plan Calendar?
You might have decided on your activities, maybe in your 30-60-90 Day Action Plan, however, an activity without a due date is just an aspiration. So now that you have decided what you want to do, you need to decide when to do it, and put some dates against each activity. There are several reasons to use a calendar format.
Simplicity - Calendars are a simple and familiar way to put a date against an activity. Everybody knows what a calendar is and how it works.
Planning - Calendars help you plan - you can set aside budget, resources and time when you know when an activity is about to happen or when something is due. Calendars help you detect overlaps and clashes. Do you have too much happening on that date? Do your planned activities fall on national holidays or observed religious festivals? Do your planned activities clash with other groups’ activities? Calendars make it easy to spot these issues.
Publicity - Calendars help you publicize your activities to your members, potential members and wider audiences. When you have a published and regularly updated calendar, everyone can see what is going on and plan their activities around it.
Showing activity - Calendars also help demonstrate that your community actually is still alive! Nobody wants to participate in a lifeless community. Calendars show that there is stuff going on: events, newsletters, celebrations and so on.
How do you create an Action Plan Calendar?
You can use any kind of online calendar to plan and display your activities. All the major community platforms including Collaboration 4 Development have calendars, or you can use one of the many calendar apps and link to it.
In general, there are three main categories of activity calendars:
High-level
Detailed
Specialized
High-level calendars
A high-level calendar contains your main activities and is generally public-facing. This is where you can advertise what’s next and what’s coming, and show what people have just missed!
The following example is an interesting variation of a calendar in time-line form:
It shows webinars, broadcasts, e-discussions, and in-person events - all activities that the community members can participate in. This calendar is visually very clear and straight-forward, using icons to indicate the different activities: e-discussions (the “@” symbol), webinars (a camera), and face-to-face events (two people shaking hands). Also, note that the community has an e-discussion before and after each webinar or face-to-face event, leveraging webinars and face-to-face events for e-discussions, and vice versa.
But the main point is that it is showing activities at a high level. It is useful for your Core Team, Core Group, community members, and in fact anybody visiting your Community site.
Note: One disadvantage of this kind of display versus a traditional calendar is that it would not be as easy to create links to say registration pages for any of the events. Something to consider.
Detailed calendars
A detailed calendar obviously shows greater detail. It is primarily an internal planning tool for your Core Team and Core Group. Members would not normally have access to this kind of calendar.
The following example of a detailed calendar shows activities over a 3-month, 6-month, and 9-month time period.
Specialized calendars
A specialized calendar is a detailed calendar but for a specific purpose or discipline. It is also intended for an internal audience.
Specialized calendars include content calendars, sometimes called editorial calendars. In these calendars, entries involve blog posts and newsletters and other content and all the intermediary activities and milestones such as out-for-review, in editorial, with legal, final draft, and posted.
Another kind of specialized calendar is an events calendar. Events calendars have a whole host of intermediary activities including: send out save-the-date emails, send out invitations, set up registration pages, arrange for speakers, arrange for sponsors,and so on. The bigger the event, the more the number of activities.
Note: As indicated before, specialized calendars are intended for an internal audience. However, you can extract the high-level activities and put them in your public, visible, high-level calendar.
Very practical from long- to short-term planning. Thanks for putting this together.
2
Thanks Aaron F Buchsbaum. I also really like how the new tools in the CoP Toolkit are being put together. It was great to see you at today's Celebration Event:)
Blog » Calendaring the Activities of a Community of Practice
Calendaring the Activities of a Community of Practice
Summary:
Resources:
What is an Action Plan Calendar?
As the name implies, Action Plan Calendar is a list of activities that the community is going to conduct, coordinate or participate in, displayed in calendar format. It is a simple and familiar format that your Core Team, your Core Group, and your members can easily relate to.
Why create an Action Plan Calendar?
You might have decided on your activities, maybe in your 30-60-90 Day Action Plan, however, an activity without a due date is just an aspiration. So now that you have decided what you want to do, you need to decide when to do it, and put some dates against each activity. There are several reasons to use a calendar format.
Simplicity - Calendars are a simple and familiar way to put a date against an activity. Everybody knows what a calendar is and how it works.
Planning - Calendars help you plan - you can set aside budget, resources and time when you know when an activity is about to happen or when something is due. Calendars help you detect overlaps and clashes. Do you have too much happening on that date? Do your planned activities fall on national holidays or observed religious festivals? Do your planned activities clash with other groups’ activities? Calendars make it easy to spot these issues.
Publicity - Calendars help you publicize your activities to your members, potential members and wider audiences. When you have a published and regularly updated calendar, everyone can see what is going on and plan their activities around it.
Showing activity - Calendars also help demonstrate that your community actually is still alive! Nobody wants to participate in a lifeless community. Calendars show that there is stuff going on: events, newsletters, celebrations and so on.
How do you create an Action Plan Calendar?
You can use any kind of online calendar to plan and display your activities. All the major community platforms including Collaboration 4 Development have calendars, or you can use one of the many calendar apps and link to it.
In general, there are three main categories of activity calendars:
High-level calendars
A high-level calendar contains your main activities and is generally public-facing. This is where you can advertise what’s next and what’s coming, and show what people have just missed!
The following example is an interesting variation of a calendar in time-line form:
It shows webinars, broadcasts, e-discussions, and in-person events - all activities that the community members can participate in. This calendar is visually very clear and straight-forward, using icons to indicate the different activities: e-discussions (the “@” symbol), webinars (a camera), and face-to-face events (two people shaking hands). Also, note that the community has an e-discussion before and after each webinar or face-to-face event, leveraging webinars and face-to-face events for e-discussions, and vice versa.
But the main point is that it is showing activities at a high level. It is useful for your Core Team, Core Group, community members, and in fact anybody visiting your Community site.
Note: One disadvantage of this kind of display versus a traditional calendar is that it would not be as easy to create links to say registration pages for any of the events. Something to consider.
Detailed calendars
A detailed calendar obviously shows greater detail. It is primarily an internal planning tool for your Core Team and Core Group. Members would not normally have access to this kind of calendar.
The following example of a detailed calendar shows activities over a 3-month, 6-month, and 9-month time period.
Specialized calendars
A specialized calendar is a detailed calendar but for a specific purpose or discipline. It is also intended for an internal audience.
Specialized calendars include content calendars, sometimes called editorial calendars. In these calendars, entries involve blog posts and newsletters and other content and all the intermediary activities and milestones such as out-for-review, in editorial, with legal, final draft, and posted.
Another kind of specialized calendar is an events calendar. Events calendars have a whole host of intermediary activities including: send out save-the-date emails, send out invitations, set up registration pages, arrange for speakers, arrange for sponsors,and so on. The bigger the event, the more the number of activities.
Note: As indicated before, specialized calendars are intended for an internal audience. However, you can extract the high-level activities and put them in your public, visible, high-level calendar.
This article is part of the WBG Communities of Practice Toolkit licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The toolkit features practical resources to help you develop impactful Communities of Practice. 📖 Learn more about the Toolkit. ▶ Access the Toolkit.