An action plan is often developed to assist project leaders to effectively demonstrate what items need to be addressed when charged to create or improve a business process, program, practice, etc. A plan should break down individual requirements and issues into steps that can be tracked, indicate team member(s) responsibility, and completion (including prerequisites) dates. A plan usually includes goals, steps, assignments, and deadlines.

The executive staff at Dayton Soft Products did not agree with your first recommendations provided in your executive summary. They asked that you go with your number 2 and number 4 recommendations, which they thought would be best for their organization. This presents a challenge to you, but you must go ahead with what your client wants.

Create an action plan with a total of at least 10 tasks. Each task must address the following three issues:

• Risk assessment (overall strategy)
• Contingency planning
• What is your plan if there is a problem? Who sets the priorities following an incident? Who is going to do what? What are the priorities? How do you keep the plan going?
• Vulnerability management
• What is the strategy for ongoing risk identification?
• Once you’ve identified the risk, how do you mitigate the risk? What are the steps?

You may complete this action table either as a 4- to-5-page Microsoft® Word document or as a detailed Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet. The following are examples of column heading titles for a table-formatted action plan:

• Column 1: Action Item
• Column 2: Description/Details
• Column 3: Person Responsible
• Column 4: Status
• Column 5: Due Date
• Column 6: Prerequisites
• Column 7: Date Completed
• Column 8: Comments/Notes