chapter 2: Organizational Considerations

Learning Objective: Users will understand how to leverage and build their organization’s capacity for affordable housing development and learn how to create a development action plan.

Who develops affordable housing?

Many different kinds of organizations can develop affordable housing. An existing organization may recognize affordable housing development as a component of their broader mission, or an organization may be formed exclusively for this purpose. Organization type can have an impact on why and how an organization pursues development, as well as the funding sources to which they have access. This section covers some general implications of organization type, but for more information about specific financial resources, see Chapter 7: Financial Feasibility and this guide’s Funding Sources Inventory.

Public sector organizations

Public housing authorities (PHAs) are the most common public sector developers of affordable housing. PHAs are responsible for the management and operation of local public housing programs, so they generally have deep experience with utilizing federal assistance programs, property management, and federal compliance and monitoring issues. They often provide other services such as homeownership opportunities for qualified families, employment training opportunities, and support programs for the elderly. PHAs may develop directly or partner with other developers to complete their objectives.

In Colorado, PHA developers can access DOH federal funds as grants and are eligible for property tax exemptions. [5]

Private, for-profit organizations

For-profit developers are a key partner in providing affordable housing. Many small-scale, mom-and-pop developers operate as for-profit entities. In addition, larger or national for-profit housing developers often can leverage economies of scale, and strong staff capacity and expertise to develop affordable housing successfully.

For-profit affordable housing developers may not earn profit to those developing market rate housing. However, many are still successful in meeting organizational financial goals while contributing to a community need.

Private, for-profit organizations typically rely more heavily on conventional equity and financing for development but can also utilize public support where they are eligible. For example, a public contribution of land or infrastructure subsidy to decrease the cost of development might increase the ability of the developer to offer affordable rents or sale prices. These organizations may also partner with nonprofit organizations for service provision to better support resident needs and leverage public resources for services. In addition, some for-profits offer pro bono consulting or technical assistance to nonprofits seeking to enter the affordable housing space.

Some philanthropic grants and public programs may specifically exclude for-profit organizations from eligibility, so it is important to research all program requirements.

Private, nonprofit organizations

Nonprofit organizations vary widely in structure, mission focus, and strengths they can leverage to become successful affordable housing developers. Below are common types of nonprofit organizations that develop affordable housing.

Community and social service providers

These organizations have a deep understanding of resident physical and service needs arising from their experience. This knowledge can help them tailor the design and programming of the development to the population’s needs. Affordable housing can serve as a complement to the organization’s existing services and provide an additional platform for service delivery to key populations, particularly if the services can be provided onsite at the housing development.

These organizations typically receive grants and public funding for the services they provide, for which other housing operators who do not specialize in service provision may not be eligible. For organizations that maintain multiple developments, there may be efficiencies of scale in providing services to sites or through existing service centers that enable them to provide services that another developer would not have the scale to sustain.

Community Development Corporations (CDCs)[6]

Although not all CDCs develop housing, this is a common activity for many. CDCs typically have a specific geographic focus that may afford them local expertise and credibility but also limits their potential development footprint outside the area they serve.

CDCs can utilize diverse funding from private philanthropic and public sources to sustain the organization and support development activities. This may enable them to target families with lower income levels or other populations that can be otherwise difficult to serve.

CDCs are also one of two types of nonprofits that are eligible to apply for HUD Section 4 capacity-building funding through national intermediary organizations such as Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Enterprise Community Partners, and Habitat for Humanity that can help them build their capacity to develop and sustain affordable housing.

Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDOs)

CHDOs are nonprofit, community-based organizations with the ability to develop affordable housing. To be designated, CHDOs must meet specific federal criteria for structure, capacity, experience, and legal status. The primary benefit of this designation is that CHDOs are eligible to use funds from a mandatory 15 percent set-aside of funding from HUD’s Home Investment Partnerships (HOME) program. This is discussed in more detail in Chapter 7: Financial Feasibility. To be eligible for funds, CHDOs must be certified by the state or local jurisdiction administering the HOME funds.

CHDOs are also one of two types of nonprofits that are eligible to apply for HUD Section 4 capacity-building funding through national intermediary organizations such as Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Enterprise Community Partners, and Habitat for Humanity that can help them build their capacity to develop and sustain affordable housing.

Land banks[7]

Land banks in Colorado are nonprofit organizations created to acquire, hold, manage, and sometimes redevelop property to return these properties to productive use to meet community goals, such as increasing affordable housing or stabilizing property values. Many also possess unique authorities to clear titles and forgive back taxes. Note that a land bank is different from a land trust, which is an entity that is set up to hold land for the benefit of other parties. See Community Land Trusts in Chapter 3: Housing Development Models, Team, and Roles for more detail.

Land banks can play a range of roles in affordable housing development, including:

• directly developing or rehabilitating land and structures;

• providing a mechanism for assembling parcels of tax-delinquent or abandoned properties for redevelopment;

• acquiring and holding strategically valuable properties until the community can develop them as affordable housing;

• acquiring properties to convert to other uses such as retail, parks, or open space for flood mitigation;

• holding and maintaining properties until a strategy for disposition is determined;

• packaging adjacent properties together for sale to a developer; and

• helping limit a developer’s holding costs until construction begins.

Other mission-oriented housing and community development organizations

Nonprofits do not need to be any of the above special designations or statuses to develop affordable housing. A wide range of nonprofit developers operate similarly to private, for-profit organizations. They may be eligible for many types of grants and other funding that for-profit entities may not and may be more likely to use public sources of funding, so may find it valuable to have staff with expertise in public programs. A nonprofit starting off as a developer may find it valuable to work with a for-profit or other nonprofit, such a service provider, who is aligned with their mission or the populations they serve.

Joint ventures

A joint venture is created when two or more companies/organizations formally partner to share resources for specific real estate and community development transactions. Within this partnership, developers can acquire greater access to development sites, financing sources, staff capacity, and community support. Every real estate deal is different, and each partner offers its own strengths, weaknesses, and objectives.

For example, if an organization has the financial strength to undertake development but does not want to take on the risk associated with providing guarantees, they might seek a joint venture with another organization willing to play these roles. This is common with organizations whose primary function is not housing development, such as social service agencies, that may need to spend a lot of time working through development questions with their board of directors and other administrators.

Even if an organization can develop on its own, it may still seek a partner for other reasons, such as increasing the number of projects it can pursue simultaneously, adding financial strength, accessing predevelopment funding, combining differing strengths, or expanding into new markets. Private developers in Colorado can also form a joint venture with public housing authorities to take advantage of public housing authorities’ property tax exemption.

When considering whether a joint venture is a good option for your development, consider:

• Who to partner with. Partners for joint ventures should have aligned missions and values, and an acceptable financial condition.

• The type of roles and relationships that would best serve your organization’s needs.

• How to handle risk. All parties relevant to the partnership need to understand the financial and reputational consequences associated with development. Regardless of whether your organization is providing guarantees, issues such as cost over-runs and project delays may impact your relationship with government and financial partners and, ultimately, your ability to participate in future deals.

• How the developer fee and cash flow will be shared. For example, a party that brings land often receives a share of the developer fee, even if that party does not otherwise contribute financially to the deal.

For more information on joint ventures, see Enterprise Community Partners’ Joint Venture Guidebook.

Key developer roles

Although there are many organizations that can be developers, not all organizations that develop do the same things. Although there are many important roles involved in development, there are typically three key roles:

Developers identify and secure the site, assemble the other organizations involved (design, construction, property management, etc.), and identify and secure financing for the development.

Construction managers manage and implement construction, through contractors where relevant, and oversee construction finances.

Property managers oversee and operate the property after construction is complete, including leasing the units.

An organization may choose to play one or all these roles for any given development and may have different levels of comfort in the same role from one project to the next. For example, an organization may be comfortable playing the construction manager role for a single family home but may seek an outside construction manager for a large multifamily project given the greater complexity. This is discussed in more detail in Chapter 3: Housing Development Models, Team, and Roles.

Assessing your capacity to develop

Why is capacity an important consideration?

To be successful in developing affordable housing, it is important that you understand your own organization’s capacity to develop—the strengths you bring and areas where you will need support or partnership. Development itself can be a multi-year process and operating the property can extend far into the future. The financial investment and liability can be significant. Thus, developing without the required skills, resources, and expertise can be very costly and have long-term impacts on your organization. While this doesn’t mean you need to have deep experience to develop affordable housing, it means that understanding and accounting for the limits of your experience is strongly encouraged.

Even experienced developers depend on partnerships and consultants to perform specific services and fill capacity gaps. There are many roles in the development process that developers often rely on other organizations to fill, such as architects, planners, general contractors, environmental experts, property managers, service providers, accountants, lawyers, and/or financing experts. As a developer, you may feel your primary role is developing relationships with a series of experts who have the skills a developer should have. This reliance on others’ expertise is an important way that many developers work.

Partnerships with other developers are another way to fill capacity gaps and may be especially helpful when undertaking your first development or when pursuing a new type of development that may introduce additional complexities and nuances. Unlike some industries in which competition and trade secrets are barriers to partnership, it is relatively common for developers to work and learn together on projects.

Regardless of your approach to filling capacity gaps, it is important to allow for the time and space required for individual and organizational learning to take place. This can mean setting aside time to read about key topics and attend a training, or reserving time in team meetings to reflect on recent lessons learned.

In addition, don’t be afraid to ask questions—this is an important part of learning. There are many stakeholders you will encounter who want you to succeed in developing affordable housing and will help you learn the process, including funders, public officials, contractors, community members, and other organizations that develop housing or support developers. Some of these organizations that have more experience with development can even help you understand where you may need additional support and where you could realistically plan to learn by doing.

How to assess your capacity

The goal of a self-assessment is to determine if developing affordable housing fits into your organization’s goals, and if so, where you have or lack the capacity to become a successful affordable housing developer. A self-assessment can help you identify the roles and responsibilities needed to develop and if your current staff have the skills and availability to take on these new roles or where it may be helpful to seek support. In fact, many grant applications require organizations to include assessments of their organizational capacity.

A Development Capacity Self-assessment tool is included with this guide and may be helpful as you consider your capacity for affordable housing development.

Capacities needed for development

The specific capacities needed will vary from development to development, from smaller and less complex developments to larger developments that may require additional resources and expertise. In either scenario, capacities detailed below are always helpful to have.

Staff

Regardless of the amount or scope of work you plan to contract out for the development, your organization’s staff will need the time and expertise to make the project successful.

Project and contractor management will be a critical skill set for managing the range of processes and stakeholders involved in development. Are there staff with established project management skill sets who can manage details across multiple tasks or processes at once?

If not, it may be necessary to hire someone with this skillset for at least the duration of the project. The costs of delays and problems due to poor project management can easily outweigh the cost of maintaining a staff person.

Core skills and attitudes in staff that will be helpful to cultivate a capable development team include the following:

• Comfort with uncertainty. Development is a long process with many unknowns. There will be many times when decisions will need to be made without having all the details or knowledge.

• Adaptability and problem solving. The development process can throw many curveballs, so staff need to be comfortable adapting to new expectations, revising assumptions, and addressing new problems as they arise, sometimes with imperfect information available.

• Relationship building. Development involves a wide range of stakeholders, so the ability to develop productive relationships is a critical component. A good relationship built in one development process may be helpful in the next.

• Good verbal and written communication. Can staff communicate clearly, politely, and in a timely manner with different kinds of stakeholders?

• Comfort with not being an expert. Staff should feel comfortable asking questions and should always look for opportunities to learn more about parts of the process they are less knowledgeable about.

• Good team dynamics and teamwork. Staff will be working together and depend on one another for the project’s success. Having staff that actively support one another will help to ensure a smooth process and make the experience more positive for everyone involved.

Experience and knowledge with key parts of the development process are also critical capacities. Where staff lack this, do they have the time, interest, and ability to learn? Will there be space for them to do this prior to the relevant phase of the development process? Will they need any form of dedicated training or support from expert consultants or partners to do so? Are the costs of this feasible?

It will be helpful for at least some staff to have (or develop) experience with, or knowledge about, the following key topics:

• The construction process and how to work with and manage general contractors

• Local land use regulations, approval processes, and politics, including relationships with individuals involved

• Physical and environmental site conditions that may be opportunities or hinderances for development

• Real estate finance, including experience with private housing finance tools and public sector support and compliance

• Property management, operation, and maintenance

• Community and resident engagement processes

• The needs, stakeholders, and market conditions in the community where development is occurring

• Scoping and delivering resident services (directly or through partners)

• Marketing, outreach, and lease-up processes

• Contract and real estate law to facilitate review and management of legal processes

• Writing proposals, grants, or applications

• Applicable reporting and compliance processes

• Leadership and ability to create a shared vision; given the number of stakeholders and perspectives involved, developing a shared collective vision of the process and goals is an important skill

In addition, there are many specialized or technical roles in the development process that even experienced developers typically outsource. However, if staff happen to have these skills, evaluate how their experience could be utilized. For example, an organization with a staff member who previously worked as an architect may not be qualified or have the time to be the primary architect for the project, but they may still be able to play a role in the project by providing expert review of designs and plans from an architect consultant.

Time. In addition to the above skills and experience, the staff involved must be reasonably able to commit the time to ensuring this project’s success given their other commitments. Developers typically dedicate at least one full-time person to a development process, and larger developments can have multiple people fully dedicated to them.

Operational support

In addition to the staff who will be directly involved in development, it’s important to talk to your organization’s support and administrative staff to understand how developing affordable housing may impact their work and ensure that all involved staff have the tools and resources they need.

Areas that could be relevant to discuss include:

Human resources may need to be involved when hiring new staff or coordinating professional development of existing staff.

Information technology (IT) may need to be involved to purchase new software to manage a more complex project or set up a new property in the organization’s property management system. Staff may need new equipment or software to complete various aspects of the development. It’s even possible your development could have an IT component such as a shared computer space for residents that requires IT support.

Accounting and finance staff should be engaged to determine whether the necessary systems, knowledge, and policies are in place to support the development throughout its lifecycle. Do you have internal controls and procedures in place to ensure proper financial management? Will you meet balance sheet requirements when applying for project financing (see Chapter 7: Financial Feasibility)?

This key function can also help you set up processes for anticipating and mitigating risks involved in the development process. What if funding for the project is slower to materialize than expected? What if lease-up is slower? What if operating expenses are higher? These considerations may be less relevant for smaller developments but may be significant for larger ones.

Board

Organizations with a board can also leverage expertise and relationships from their board members, in addition to the capacity of staff who will be involved directly in the project. If your organization has a board, consider the following:

Real estate expertise. Knowledge and experience among any of the areas mentioned in the staff section above could be a helpful supplement to the capacity of your staff, particularly in areas where staff lack key skills. Board members who have been developers or who have experience with real estate financing, investment, and law; property management; public sector processes; and the local real estate policy and regulatory environment can be especially helpful and help to train or mentor staff as they develop their own experience in these areas.

Accounting and finance experience among board members can help you think through the financial implications of development for your organization.

Community experience. Board members who have detailed understanding of the community’s housing needs, local market conditions, and the stakeholder landscape can also be valuable in aligning the scope and goals of development with these priorities.

Capacity assessment and alignment. Your board can also be a valuable resource in helping you think through your organization’s capacity assessment. If you are new to development, your board may be a valuable resource in determining what you can learn by doing and where you may need to seek additional expertise or partnership to accomplish your goals. They can also help you consider the alignment of affordable housing development with your organization’s overall mission, vision, values, and strategic plan.

Relationships and external support

Given the number of stakeholders involved in the affordable housing development process, relationships are a key ingredient for successful development. In fact, many developers consider the relationships they have to be their biggest asset. Consider relationships that you have with local government and elected officials, community members, service providers, lenders, other developers, professional development networks you belong to, and other stakeholders and resources. How can these be leveraged within your development? Are there new kinds of relationships that you should strategically cultivate? Can your existing network help you make inroads? Chapter 4: Engaging the Community provides more information on this topic.

Building your capacity

If the aforementioned list of roles and capacities seems intimidatingly long, fortunately there are resources to help you gain the capacity to develop affordable housing, including:

Building staff capacity

Hiring new staff. The simplest way for an organization to acquire new skills and expertise is to hire new staff who have these skills. These could be temporary staff hired only for the implementation of a specific development or permanent positions within the organization.

Direct experience. Having your staff experience the development process firsthand is the best way to build your overall capacity around development and the only real way to build staff experience. Consultants and partner organizations who are more experienced in development can provide support and guidance to those less-experienced staff. When taking this approach, it may be helpful to make this role explicit in the consultant scope or partnership agreement and ensure that key staff are working directly with the consultants to benefit from their expertise.

It can be helpful to ease staff into the process by exposing them to smaller developments when just starting out. This will provide a good foundation of expertise and experience to undertake larger and more complex projects in the future and expose them to more aspects of the development process compared to a larger project where they may play more specialized roles.

Training. There are a range of resources and capacity-building opportunities that staff may access outside of direct experience such as those from CHFA, the National Development Council, NeighborWorks, Housing Colorado, and the Colorado Division of Housing (DOH).

Coursework offered by local colleges and universities or through online classroom settings provide a structured and often comprehensive approach to acquiring new skills and expertise. Courses vary by institution, but can include real estate development and finance, housing market economics, project management, design and engineering, environmental issues, and community engagement. These are typically longer-term commitments, such as weekly classes over the course of several months, but some online courses may allow staff to work at their own pace. They may also offer the added benefit of providing staff with credits toward academic degrees.

Academic programs can range in terms of their focus on practical experience compared to research and theory. This may depend on both the institutional focus and the level of practical experience a given instructor has. Academic courses taken for credit typically carry costs, but courses that are audited may have reduced or no costs.

Nonacademic, in-person, or online training programs and academies are offered by a wide variety of organizations in the housing, community development, and real estate development fields. These are typically shorter, more intensive courses that are focused on developing core skillsets and knowledge areas. They may be free, but many carry some level of cost. DOH, for example, periodically offers a Developer’s Tool Kit training series. CHFA's chfareach program offers classes for property managers and housing staff, as well as a Housing Professionals Institute.

Other materials, such as guides, webinars, recorded trainings, and books can be good sources of information for staff who are inclined to learn on their own. These materials are often free or have minimal costs. These also provide the lowest levels of “hands-on” experience for staff, so they may be most useful when paired with direct experience.

Regardless of the training source, it is important that staff are allowed the time and space to pursue these training opportunities.

Building your board of directors’ capacity

Adding new members. As with building staff capacity, consider adding new members who have the skills and experience needed to support affordable housing development.

Consultant support. Hiring a consultant to support and provide technical assistance and capacity building to your board members is a viable strategy and benefiting from this service may be an additional source of value for board members who serve without compensation. Rather than hiring a general managerial consultant that might focus on general board development, consider hiring a consultant with more expertise in the aspects of housing development you feel your board needs. This consultant can help board members understand the implications of key decisions and identify specific knowledge gaps and provide resources to fill them. CHFA's Small-scale Affordable Housing Technical Assistance Program provides expert technical assistance to developers to close capacity gaps at no cost to the developer.

Exposure to the development process. Like staff, a key capacity-building vehicle for your board will come from being involved in the development process. Unlike staff, however, board members will not have the benefit of being involved in the day-to-day development processes, so it will be important for the organization’s leadership to elevate key concerns, decision points, and issues on which the board needs to weigh in. In addition, ensure you are reporting key lessons learned, setbacks, and successes encountered along the way so that the board can learn along with the organization for future development projects.

Training. Board members can also benefit from the same training resources as staff—academic courses, professional trainings, and standalone materials. However, it is important to ensure any ask is a reasonable commitment, particularly for those who serve with no compensation.

Funding for capacity building

Fortunately, there are resources available to help your organization develop the capacity to succeed in affordable housing development. There are many organizations in your community and across the country that recognize the need for more affordable housing options and are willing to support you in your efforts.

Nonprofits that are CDCs or CHDOs (described previously) can utilize HUD Section 4 funding through national intermediary organizations, such as Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Enterprise Community Partners, and Habitat for Humanity, to support many types of capacity-building activities. Many philanthropic organizations provide grants to organizations that develop affordable housing to improve their ability to do so. Even local public or quasi-public organizations may have programs or funding available to help. Local housing leadership cohort programs, for example, can help your staff develop relationships and knowledge about housing development, often at no cost to your organization.

Even when external funding is not available, internal resources may be. For example, time and training costs could be aligned with budgeted staff professional development plans. The costs of capacity building may even be incorporated into a development project budget.

Creating a development action plan

Introduction

A development action plan details the reasons you plan to develop affordable housing and the steps your organization will take to prepare and succeed. This will give you a roadmap to refer to over time (and revise as needed) to ensure that you are making progress toward your goal of developing affordable housing. Expect an action plan to be revised along the way. You won’t have perfect information at the outset of development, so this should be a working document that evolves as new information becomes clear.

Development action plans are also helpful for building shared understanding of both goals and approach with your staff, board, and partners. Visualizing them with flowcharts, timelines, or Gantt charts can help these stakeholders interpret it.

Creating a development action plan involves five general steps:

• Articulate your goals in developing affordable housing.

• Define your development model and the roles you intend to play.

• Identify the actions required to complete the development.

• Review your plan to make sure it is feasible.

• Revise your plan as new information becomes available.

Step 1: Articulate goals

The first step in creating your action plan is articulating the goals you have for developing affordable housing and the outcomes you hope to achieve. Defining clear goals is important to ensure your development approach is aligned with your reasons for pursuing it and is critical for communicating the value of your development to your board, staff, and other stakeholders.

Start by making a list of what your organization generally hopes to accomplish by developing affordable housing. It may be helpful to engage your board, staff, and/or community stakeholders in this process.

Do you seek to serve particular populations or income levels? Do you want to contribute to the development of a specific neighborhood? Do you plan to create more energy-efficient buildings? How could this development advance strategic objectives for the organization? Does your organization wish to create an alternative source of revenue or achieve a better efficiency of scale?

Some goals may be specific to a particular development you are considering while others may be reasons why your organization seeks to develop affordable housing more generally. Both types are helpful to identify.

For each goal, note:

• Description. Describe the goal you want to achieve, being specific about any populations to be supported or other targets.

• Starting point: Where are you now with respect to this goal?

• Desired outcomes: What would success look like for your affordable housing development activities? Could you measure any of these outcomes to demonstrate your organization’s success and impact?

• Benchmarks: Given the desired outcomes, what are reasonable benchmarks you would like to meet to ensure your organization is making progress toward its goal? For example, what would you like to have accomplished two years from now? Five years from now?

Step 2: Define development model and roles

Once you have articulated your goals, you’ll have a good basis for deciding on your development model. What type of development would best advance your goals and the roles you expect your organization to play in the development process? Who do you intend to partner or contract with to complete the required tasks? These decisions are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3: Housing Development Models, Team, and Roles.

Fortunately, developments that are similar in nature are likely to have similar action plans, so you can expect to reuse your action plan for similar developments. For example, a three-unit, new-construction rental property is likely to have a similar action plan to a four-unit, new-construction rental property in the same jurisdiction. On the other hand, development of a single family, for-sale home in a different jurisdiction would have some key differences in the actions required. If you know a developer who has completed a project like the one you are considering, consider asking them to share their action plan to give you a starting point.

Step 3: Identify actions

This step focuses on identifying each action your organization needs to take to achieve your goals. An action could be kicking off a process, making a decision, creating a deliverable, or collecting information. Information helpful for identifying these actions is contained throughout this guide.

At the beginning of a new development, don’t expect to be able to identify every necessary action or have all the details correct. As stated above, this is a working document that will be revised throughout the process. For example, at first you may only have a single task to cover environmental review, since you may not know what type of environmental review will be needed. As your site and likely funding sources become clear, however, you will have a better understanding of the specific environmental review actions required and can adjust your action plan accordingly. It is still helpful to map out those actions.

A value in mapping out actions is recognizing that some actions will need to be taken before others to keep your development on track. For example, if you know you’ll need to work with a property management company for project operations, you’ll need to make sure you have actions included earlier in the process for interviewing and hiring them. Once you have all your key actions listed, ensure the sequencing makes sense.

Where possible, answer the following questions about each action:

Step 4: Review your plan

Once you have thought through the actions that will be required for you to complete this development, take a step back to look at your development action plan as a whole. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are there opportunities to better align your identified actions with your goals?

• Can you identify any places where the timelines need to be reconsidered to satisfy action dependencies?

• What are the actions or processes that you have the greatest concerns about? Is there anything you can do to anticipate or address these concerns?

• Do you feel confident that staff have the required capacity to complete these actions?

• Can you identify the development’s critical path actions, such as those that may cause delays if they are not completed on time?

Revise your development action plan to address any issues or concerns you identify.

Step 5: Revise as you go

The final step is revising your development action plan throughout the development process. New information may prompt you to revise your expectations about timelines, stakeholders, and dependencies, and your action plan should reflect these changes.