As 2009 draws rapidly to a close, I, like many other achievement orientated business owners, found myself working on my business plan for 2010. Having 'planned' a lot and often being disappointed with the results, this year I've taken a different approach. This year I wanted a plan that was easy to use, simple to update, kept me focussed on what is 'really' important to me in the business sense and took into account the 'rest' of my life.
The first step was to recognise the weaknesses in prior planning processes. For me, a key weakness has been what I call 'ideal-world-planning' - planning goals and outcomes based on a 'perfect world'. This involves setting goals that would be fantastic to achieve, but 'forget' the current context of the business owner - working part-time, young kids at home, other committments both in and outside the business, working on less-than-a-shoestring budget just to name a few.
The second step was to see how my business goals align (or otherwise) with each other to ensure they're synergistic ... not a distraction. This then expanded out into the activities I'll pursue to achieve my plans ... making sure that all the 'things' that I 'do' on a day-to-day basis actually contribute to my desired outcomes.
(I must acknowledge my goregous friend Stacey Barr for her input on this one. Her planning model, outlined in her 'PuMP How-To Kit', 'How to Make Strategy Measureable' gave me the inpsiration for a new planning model for myself. I used the model shown in her kit and adapted it in this instance for my outcome ... a simple, straight-forward visual plan that would show how all my goals work together in concert).
The third step was to keep it simple, make it visual and get it on one page. Why? Well, the simple part ... because I have a tendency to get lost in the details and spend days and days nutting out the n-th degree of detail. This for me is unnecessary time wastage, one, because I'm a naturally detailed person anyway, so the 'details' will happen as a matter of course, and two, because by the time I get to exectute my plan, the 'details' may not roll-out as planned.
Being a visual plan on one-page means I can have it on my desk, right-in-front-of-me, ALL the time. This helps me stay focussed. And for me, it needs to be on my desk I think - not on the wall as it has been in the past. I spend SO much time on the computer, my line of sight is generally between notes and files on my desk and my computer screen. So I've put my plan in a plastic sleeve and taped it to my desk like a desk-pad.
The over-riding thought-process while developing my plan was asking myself how these goals and required activities fit into my life? Do I want to do what's required to achieve these goals? Can I make my desired income in my available work-time through these kinds of activities? What could go wrong and what resources will I need to make these plans come to fruition? This particular part of the planning process is still 'in progress' and I'll revisit in a day or so after this plan has had time to 'settle' in my head.
As I work on this plan over the next few days I'll let you know how I progress ... still to map my key measures for this plan (what gets measured gets done) and key milestones. Stay tuned ....
Cat
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