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Digg it UP - An Annual Strategic Planning Process for Small Businesses
I recently upgraded the telephone system in our home and office. For the next two days everything about the phones went wrong: crossed lines, disconnected calls, non-working outlets, strange buzzing sounds.Only after two additional visits by the technician was the upgrade working as intended.Have you noticed how often this happens?The new improved computer software runs slower than the version you just replaced. The latest hardware proves harder to manage than the system you abandoned. The new car goes back to the shop for an adjustment within two weeks when the old car worked perfectly for years. The new home has a door that jams, a roof that leaks, a window or floorboard that squeaks.No one intends an ‘upgrade’ to start out as a ‘downgrade’, but the pattern is familiar an
CEO Challenge and Review - CEO and most department heads should probably meet one-on-one to flush out these first drafts before meeting #2.
Team Meeting # 2 – Validating “It” Can Be Done - Each team member now presents their goals to the team and explains the risks, resources need
“The type of service provides an indication of the abstract parameters of the quality of service desired. These parameters are to be used to guide the selection of the actual service parameters when transmitting a data through the particular network.”The Quality of Service can be defined as, "The measure of the degree of satisfaction of the user of the system".Quality of Service: It is not possible to guess what the customer wants. Detailed, sector-by-sector, surveys are required to provide information by transaction on how we are performing and what really matters to customers. This must be followed by rigorous root cause analysis and action to improve performance.In the ever more competitive environment of telecommunications, the Quality of Service pe
In the last issue we discuss the need for a strategic plan, even in small companies, and the key questions that all managers, and even other employees must be able to answer for optimum results in your company.
The Strategic Planning Process I Recommend:
Team Meeting #1 - Brainstorming the “WHAT” – Most likely here the CEO puts the first stake in the ground, proposing “WHAT” the objectives are for the coming year. This is just a starting point for discussion really though. It might be as simple as a percentage growth goal, or as complex as a bunch of new market niches and/or product combinations to explore. There is much discussion about what is achievable, how and why or why not. This needs to be a safe environment to brainstorm, say anything and challenge everything. Your culture must not only allow, but must encourage dissent and heated discussion. Without this you will be growing a team of “yes men” (and women) that are there to simply validate what the CEO wants. At this point we are getting the team’s input on “What” we want to achieve this year. This can be a bottomless pit of time and discussions and at some point the CEO needs to decide on limits. Details should not be discussed unless they make the objectives impractical. This is more of a brainstorming meeting and can easily take several hours. I like to call these “Summits” and do them offsite to get people away from distractions and enhance creativity. If you can afford it make it a paid weekend foliage or ski trip with this meeting being the focal point of the weekend and lots of time for people to bond personally too. The quicker this gets done the better your team is really – the more alignment in thinking anyway. However are you pushing the envelope of creativity and options? If this stretches out to several meetings without some clear agreement on the “what” then you should probably bring in an outside facilitator or advisor.
Individual Department First Draft Developed - The team now goes away and individually prepares what they think is achievable for their department written down in terms of quarterly goals and priorities. This is 1-3 pages per department, not anything big, as it is still dynamic and just a proposal. Sometimes a list of potential projects and priorities, things to try and larger items for discussion is even sufficient at this stage. Avoid schedules at this stage, as you will most likely rearrange order and priorities. These senior people will seek out and meet with others to discuss dependencies, timelines and how they will accomplish some goals fairly informally. This off-line work should build enough confidence and framework to go to the next step and surface any conflict to be brought to the group for discussion.
CEO Challenge and Review - CEO and most department heads should probably meet one-on-one to flush out these first drafts before meeting #2.
Team Meeting # 2 – Validating “It” Can Be Done - Each team member now presents their goals to the team and explains the risks, resources neede
How many people do you know who think they deserve a pay rise, but are too scared to ask? You might even be one of those people! Why is it we are afraid to ask for what we believe we are worth? It’s time to stop worrying and start asking, but before you charge into your boss’s office give yourself the best chance of success with these helpful tips…then book that meeting with the boss.Do an audit. Make a huge list of all your achievements in your current role. Think about where you add value to your organisation and how you have grown the business. List both demonstrable results such as statistics, sales figures, client testimonials and reports as well as those things that can be a little more difficult to quantify, such as improving staff morale.Know what you’re worth. Find
Individual Department First Draft Developed - The team now goes away and individually prepares what they think is achievable for their department written down in terms of quarterly goals and priorities. This is 1-3 pages per department, not anything big, as it is still dynamic and just a proposal. Sometimes a list of potential projects and priorities, things to try and larger items for discussion is even sufficient at this stage. Avoid schedules at this stage, as you will most likely rearrange order and priorities. These senior people will seek out and meet with others to discuss dependencies, timelines and how they will accomplish some goals fairly informally. This off-line work should build enough confidence and framework to go to the next step and surface any conflict to be brought to the group for discussion.
CEO Challenge and Review - CEO and most department heads should probably meet one-on-one to flush out these first drafts before meeting #2.
Team Meeting # 2 – Validating “It” Can Be Done - Each team member now presents their goals to the team and explains the risks, resources need
If you are in the service industry then you realize that you must give the customer what they want and compete in the marketplace with other companies that also offer services. One thing that service industry executives need to consider is that once you get into the marketplace you will find customers who will tell you they wish you to modify your services and they are willing to pay you more if you can do this for them.As more and more customers demand different kinds of variations of the services that you already provide it makes sense for your service company to also offer those lines of services. In fact quite often you will find that many of the additional services that are asked for in various markets by your customers will be more profitable than the current services you provided when h
Individual Department First Draft Developed - The team now goes away and individually prepares what they think is achievable for their department written down in terms of quarterly goals and priorities. This is 1-3 pages per department, not anything big, as it is still dynamic and just a proposal. Sometimes a list of potential projects and priorities, things to try and larger items for discussion is even sufficient at this stage. Avoid schedules at this stage, as you will most likely rearrange order and priorities. These senior people will seek out and meet with others to discuss dependencies, timelines and how they will accomplish some goals fairly informally. This off-line work should build enough confidence and framework to go to the next step and surface any conflict to be brought to the group for discussion.
CEO Challenge and Review - CEO and most department heads should probably meet one-on-one to flush out these first drafts before meeting #2.
Team Meeting # 2 – Validating “It” Can Be Done - Each team member now presents their goals to the team and explains the risks, resources need
As a business coach I have written a great deal about building a higher performance venture, creating breakthroughs, inventing the future, and generally moving faster than the speed of change -- or at the very least -- moving faster than your competitors.The most important thing you can do now - right at this moment - is get moving on something that's going to make a big, a tremendous difference.Reading this little bit of coaching and simply setting it down, even if you say to yourself "Wow! That sounds like it will work!" will, as you know already, accomplish nothing.Pick a problem -- pick something you've been thinking about for a while -- and apply any and all ideas that you think fit that best.Or pick any business coaching article at random and put it to work. You needn
Individual Department First Draft Developed - The team now goes away and individually prepares what they think is achievable for their department written down in terms of quarterly goals and priorities. This is 1-3 pages per department, not anything big, as it is still dynamic and just a proposal. Sometimes a list of potential projects and priorities, things to try and larger items for discussion is even sufficient at this stage. Avoid schedules at this stage, as you will most likely rearrange order and priorities. These senior people will seek out and meet with others to discuss dependencies, timelines and how they will accomplish some goals fairly informally. This off-line work should build enough confidence and framework to go to the next step and surface any conflict to be brought to the group for discussion.
CEO Challenge and Review - CEO and most department heads should probably meet one-on-one to flush out these first drafts before meeting #2.
Team Meeting # 2 – Validating “It” Can Be Done - Each team member now presents their goals to the team and explains the risks, resources need
You cannot attain financial freedom by ‘a stroke of luck’. There are certain preparatory steps you need to take, without which you cannot become wealthy.Even those who win the lottery have prepared themselves for the windfall by taking certain steps –for example, studying numbers and previous winning patterns, buying lottery tickets and submitting same correctly at the stipulated time.But then, history shows that a high percentage of lottery winners quickly went back to being poor. That is to say, though these people won millions in lottery, they never attained financial freedom because they were not properly equipped (intellectually) to handle the money. There is a science to attaining and sustaining financial freedom!Another example is that of people who were born into rich f
CEO Challenge and Review - CEO and most department heads should probably meet one-on-one to flush out these first drafts before meeting #2.
Team Meeting # 2 – Validating “It” Can Be Done - Each team member now presents their goals to the team and explains the risks, resources needed and rough timeline (quarters) for objectives (if there is good communications the managers have already compared timelines offline to coordinate this some). They should also make it clear WHY these are the right objectives for the company this year. Obviously financial costs and the resulting financial performance should be estimated.
By now the goals and priorities should be fairly clear, if not go back to step one and narrow the discussion to repeat the process – it should go quicker. Otherwise you should be simply working out more details and specifics. Ideally this will happen offline between managers and their people.
More Detailed Department Plan – Each department head, or team member, now works up the next level of detail with resources, needed, timelines and metrics for success and benchmarking progress. This is prepared to present to the entire group. As in step #2 team members meet as necessary with others to work out dependencies and get final input. They may even present what they have to the other department head too.
Team Meeting #3 – Agreeing on the “HOW” and “WHEN” – The team now meets to review an integrated plan with all department goals dovetailed to show they have a complete plan and understand how they will tie into other department’s goals and objectives too. If this process does not help and flush out most of your plan you have bigger problems and probably need some major changes and/or outside help to get through it. Don’t worry about making the document fancy, sometimes PowerPoint slides and Excel sheets with timelines and metric goals will do fine. The level of detail you require must be a function of the experience of the individual department head. The more experience they have, and the more trust you have for them, the less detail is required in the plan. However, as the company gets bigger and more people need to read the plan you may need to write more detail. Do worry about the team understanding it well. The value is not the written plan. The value you created during this process is what is in the heads of your team at the end. You have stretched their minds to a new level and thee minds should not easily return to just a day-to-day focus with good oversight. Adjustments will happen frequently in young companies and less frequently as the company gets more experience and more predictable.
We never plan to fail, only fail to plan. Don’t make that mistake. Always have an annual plan.
After this plan is in place monthly meetings, or a spe
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