It's important to remember a fundamental fact about business plans: business plans become outdated very rapidly and, if not updated, lose whatever value they may have to a company.
In other words, business planning is an ongoing process and the written plan must be regularly revised if it is going to have continuing value. It is essential to review the plan on at least a quarterly basis and measure results against the plan.
The reality of today's world is that the pace of change is accelerating. What that means is that executives must be constantly making adjustments to their plans. As the pace of change speeds up, it is easy to lose sight of the business plan and simply make the necessary adjustments to the plan on a day-to-day basis.
One way to accomplish this task without being under the pressure of completely rewriting the plan each quarter is to establish priorities and implementation steps as part of the planning and quarterly review process
Another way to help the review and measurement process is to set target dates for completing various components of the plan.
The priorities and dates can be included at the end of each section of the plan or in a separate section at the end of the completed plan. In either case, they should be taken very seriously if they are to have the intended effect of helping in the plan review process. Deadlines have a way of slipping in many companies; simply pushing the dates back a few months at each quarterly review quickly renders the whole process meaningless.
Executives and other employees must be judged on their ability to meet the plan's deadlines. If adjustments or delays are necessary for valid operational or planning reasons, these must be discussed and analyzed.
Dust off your plan and make sure 2012 is ready to rock as soon as the calendar flips! See more business planning tips in Bolts of Lightening in The OED Community!
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