Who What When Action Plan

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Produce a committed, visible list of individual follow-up actions and completion dates before closing a session.

Use it when: Use during the final 15 minutes of a working session, project kickoff, or retrospective to establish clear accountability.

Skip it when: Skip during open-ended exploratory sessions or informational briefings where no follow-up implementation work is expected.

Group arrangement: Individual drafting followed by whole-room consensus review

Timing: UWT suggested 15-minute pacing to allow individual reflection and whole-group calibration

Materials and tools

• Whiteboard or flip chart paper
• Dry-erase markers or flip chart markers
• Sticky notes (one pad per 4 participants)
• Pens (one per participant)

Before participants arrive

1. Draw a three-column table on the whiteboard or wall labeled 'WHO', 'WHAT', and 'WHEN' from left to right.
2. List each participant's name down the 'WHO' column, providing separate rows.

Say this to open

We are closing today by building our action plan. Notice the board starts with WHO, not WHAT. Accountability belongs to people, not generic task lists. Please take sticky notes and write specific commitments you will carry out, paired with a realistic completion date.

How to run it

1. Introduce grid and frame tasks 2 minutes

   Explain the three-column layout. Clarify that commitments must be concrete actions within the person's control, not vague intentions. For example, write 'Draft two-page rollout brief' rather than 'Look into rollout'.

2. Draft individual actions and dates 4 minutes

   Participants work silently. Each person writes one or more tasks on sticky notes and pairs each task with an explicit date. Participants place their notes directly onto their assigned row in the WHAT and WHEN columns.

3. Review workload and spot gaps 6 minutes

   Lead a whole-group review of the board. Check for unbalanced workloads where one person took on too much or too little. Ask whether any critical session outcomes lack an owner, and allow volunteers to adjust dates or rebalance tasks.

4. Confirm follow-up cadence 3 minutes

   Agree on how and when the group will check progress on these items. Document who will distribute the board photo or digital record and when the check-in will happen.

Debrief questions

• Looking across the board, are all essential next steps covered?
• Are any proposed completion dates unrealistic given current team capacity?
• What specific check-in mechanism will we use to track these commitments?

Finished output: A completed three-column action grid with named owners, clear deliverables, realistic due dates, and an agreed follow-up schedule.

Remote

Set up a shared digital whiteboard with three columns: WHO, WHAT, and WHEN. Pre-populate row headers with participant names. Give 4 minutes for participants to add digital sticky notes to their row. Conduct the group review via open discussion using screen sharing.

Hybrid

Maintain the single source of truth on a shared digital whiteboard. In-room attendees use laptops or an in-room facilitator mirrors their physical sticky notes onto the shared canvas so remote members have equal visibility and editing access.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may dictate their actions to a partner or the facilitator instead of writing.
• Anyone whose role does not include execution tasks may declare 'Support only' or pass on taking an individual row.

If the session gets stuck

Tasks are written too vaguely to track, such as 'communication' or 'alignment'.

Ask the author: 'What specific artifact or message will be delivered, and to whom?' Have them rewrite the note to name the tangible output.

One participant takes on too many actions while others take none.

Prompt the room: 'Alex has four heavy deliverables. Who can partner on one of these to ensure the dates hold?'

Terms used here

• Consensus Review: A brief group check to ensure everyone understands, agrees with, and can support the listed commitments and dates.