Strategy and execution
Your strategic plan says what your organisation wants to achieve over the next few years. Execution is where that plan lives in VirgilTrack. It turns the plan into targets you can measure, money you can track and tasks people can do, so everyone can see how far the organisation has come.
Open it with Execution in the menu on the left.
Who uses this area
Section titled “Who uses this area”- The CEO leads the plan. The CEO sees the whole plan: its overview, objectives, KPIs, budget, annual plans and how people’s work lines up with it. The CEO also decides who else may open these pages.
- Department managers run their department’s part of the plan. They plan their initiatives’ work month by month, manage their budgets and follow their department’s performance.
- Team managers plan and follow the initiatives of their department.
- Employees do the tasks that carry the plan forward. In Execution they see their Work Reports and the Calendar.
For the full list of pages each role sees, see Find your way around Execution.
How a strategic plan is built
Section titled “How a strategic plan is built”VirgilTrack reads your plan as a set of building blocks, each inside the one before it.
| Building block | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic plan | The whole plan, with its title and its start and end dates. | “Strategic Plan 2025–2030” |
| Years | The plan is split into years, usually your financial years. Targets and budgets are set per year. | 2026/27 |
| Theme | A broad area of focus that groups objectives. Some plans call these pillars. | “Financial sustainability” |
| Objective | Something the organisation wants to achieve under a theme. | “Improve revenue collection” |
| KPI | A key performance indicator: a measure that shows whether an objective is being achieved. Each KPI has a starting point (the baseline), a target for each year, and the actual result. | “Collection rate: from 62% to 80%” |
| Initiative | A piece of work, such as a project or programme, that helps reach an objective. Each initiative belongs to one department. | “Install prepaid water meters” |
| Budget | The money allocated to an initiative for a year, how much of it is secured, and what has been spent. | “N$ 1.2M allocated, N$ 800K secured” |
| Task | One job under an initiative, given to one person with a due date. | “Issue the tender for 500 meters” |
So a task moves an initiative forward, an initiative helps an objective, and the objective’s KPIs show whether it worked.
A plan can also hold strategic issues (problems the plan sets out to solve), stakeholders and their commitments, and links to national or global frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals. When VirgilTrack reads your plan, it picks these up too.
The life of a strategic plan
Section titled “The life of a strategic plan”- Brought in. Someone uploads the plan as a PDF. VirgilTrack’s AI reads it and checks its reading against the document. See Bring in your strategic plan.
- Reviewed and approved. A person checks what was read, fills in anything missing, and approves it. It becomes the organisation’s active plan. See Review and approve an imported plan.
- Funded. Department managers and the CEO set each initiative’s budget for the year. See Allocate an initiative’s budget.
- Planned. Managers break each initiative into tasks, month by month. See Plan an initiative’s tasks.
- Done. People carry out their tasks and report on them in their weekly reports. See Tasks and Work reports and records.
- Measured. The KPIs’ actual results are recorded, and VirgilTrack shows what is on track and what isn’t. See Record KPI results.
On track, at risk and off track
Section titled “On track, at risk and off track”Throughout Execution, a KPI is compared with its target for the current year. If it has reached its target, it is On track. If it is close, it is At risk. If it is well below, it is Off track. If no result has been recorded yet, it shows No data.
Initiatives have their own statuses, worked out from their tasks: On track, Behind, Missed work, Stalled, No work planned and Done.
For exactly how each status and percentage is worked out, see How progress and status are worked out.
Pages in this chapter
Section titled “Pages in this chapter”- Find your way around Execution: the Execution menu, which pages each role sees, and how to get access to more.
- Bring in your strategic plan: upload your plan and let VirgilTrack read it.
- Review and approve an imported plan: check what was read, fill the gaps and approve the plan.
- The plan overview: the whole plan on one page.
- Objectives: each objective with its KPIs, initiatives, alignments, risks and issues.
- The KPIs page: every KPI’s target, actual result and status.
- Record KPI results: go through the KPIs one by one and record their actual values.
- Add, change or delete KPIs: keep the plan’s KPIs right.
- The Initiatives page: each initiative’s work for the year, month by month.
- Plan an initiative’s tasks: delegate tasks under an initiative.
- Annual plans: how far each department has planned its year.
- The Budget page: what each initiative is allocated, has secured and has spent.
- Allocate an initiative’s budget: set or change a budget, and record where the money comes from.
- Record spending on an initiative: log expenditures, including spending mentioned in work reports.
- Department performance: one department’s KPIs, work, budget and alignment.
- Work alignment: how people’s reported work lines up with the strategy.
- Manage plans and page access: see and delete plans, and give people extra Execution pages.
- How progress and status are worked out: the rules behind every percentage and status.
- Download KPI and annual plan reports: PDF reports for meetings, the council and the board.