With year-end right around the corner, most business owners are knee-deep into their annual strategic planning process, while others are mostly completed. When planning for the year ahead, it is sometimes difficult to gauge what that strategic plan should look like and what matrixes to have in place. Leading into the last month of the year, I suggest at minimum you have in place your:
- Budget for the Coming Year
- Measurable Goals and Actions for the year that support your critical success factors
- Q1 90 Day Measurable Goals
While you might not be there yet, for the moment, let’s presume that your strategic plan is in place and ask a few questions:
- Why do most plans fail?
- Why do most people avoid strategic planning?
- Why, for so many, do many plans simply sit on the shelf?
For business owners, it isn’t about creating elaborate, huge strategic plans. It is far more important to create plans that are executable. This means that your plan needs to be SMART:
- SPECIFIC
- MEASURABLE
- ATTAINABLE/ACHIEVABLE
- RESPONSIBLE PARTY/RESOURCED (budget allocated if appropriate)
- TIMEBOUND
But again, not even a SMART strategic plan matters if you don’t hold yourself and your team accountable for executing that plan. A big, bodacious plan can sound daunting, but by breaking things down into bite-sized baby steps you can get stuff done! Consider including strategic action updates in your weekly team meetings to help maintain accountability and to share team and individual progress.
Monthly, you should review your plan and update or modify as needed. And 30 days before the end of each quarter, you should define your 90 days goals for the quarter ahead.
The success of your strategic plan is dependent focus and implementation. By breaking actionable items down into manageable chunks and then executing them, you will make significant progress towards achieving your goals for the coming year and positively positioning yourself for years to come.
By Blair Koch