ABSTRACT
Planning is the creative part of the development process. If the department development plan is to be more than a wish list, then the process of implementing and evaluating the plans must be thoroughly worked out. A central aspect of your role as a middle manager is to sustain the implementation and evaluation phases so that planned changes actually happen. If you do not take on this role then the chances of your plans being brought to fruition are severely impaired and, importantly, you run the risk of the process running out of steam and staff becoming disillusioned. Inevitably this will make it more difficult for you to motivate them to plan development in the future. Diversions too can easily take staff off to other tasks. If you, as middle manager, consider the work important enough to monitor progress regularly, to allocate resources where these are needed to support the plans, and to support and encourage staff, then staff too feel able to give the work a high priority.
