In the planning series we tried to give you the tools necessary for formulating a business plan. While a plan is all well and good, most business owners stop at making their plan, and then the plan goes on the shelf gathering dust forevermore.

Dreams and ambitions are great and important, but results are what really count in the business world. Therefore, it is important to establish realistic goals with a sound methodology for achieving them.

A key to a great business plan is actually achieving the plan! Below are the steps I use and recommend to my clients to:
 Set Your Goals & Objectives
 Break your Plans down into digestible and doable portions of an action plan
 Review and Track your progress
 Modify your action plan

The above steps are based on the P-D-C-A (Plan, Do, Check, Act) Cycle used in process improvement. The P-D-C-A cycle is effective in improving processes in a efficient manner. It is also very effective in achieving your Goals & Objectives.

Goal Setting

1) Generate your three to five year Plan; this is your Strategic Plan or Business Plan (the view from 30,000 feet).

2) Generate your one year plan; based on your Strategic Plan, this is your Tactical Plan or Annual Operating Plan (the view from a mile high).

These are your Overall (Strategic) Goals & Objectives and Plans.

Breaking the G & O’s and the Plan into smaller ACTION plans

3) Generate your Quarterly or Monthly Plan; based on your Annual Operating Plan, this breaks it down into much more digestible portions (the view from a thousand feet)

4) Each week break your Monthly or Quarterly plan down into a plan of attack for the week (the view from a hundred feet).

5) Each day break your weekly plan into your daily commitments and to dos to support the weekly plan (the view from eye level).

These are your Tactical Goals & Objectives and Plans. These are your commitments, to yourself, to your business, to your employees and to your clients and vendors.

Some business owners stop at step one or two, this is a huge mistake. How do you review, track or modify your action plan once a year or even worse once every three years?

If you break your Plans into smaller and smaller parts is much easier to determine and therefore accomplish the specific steps necessary to achieving your goals and objectives in an effective and efficient manner.

Periodic Review and Modification of the Plan

Periodically you need to review how your plan is working – compare your actual results and progress against where you intended to be, what you intended to get done. Ask yourself the following questions
     Are my expectations too low?
     Are my expectations too high?
     Is this necessary?
     Why did I fall short in a particular action step or action plan?
     Why was I successful in a particular action step or action plan?
     What methods can I replicate from the successful actions in the actions that need work?

When something is not working, get some outside help to analyze why? This can be a partner, a peer, a trusted business friend or an outside professional. The point is that the extra set of eyes can spot flaws in your plan or your execution that you can’t or – more probably – won’t see.

This is why it’s important for all business owners to have a support group of some kind (we will cover this in another article).

Your Strategic and Tactical plans should take two days each, once a year.

Your weekly plan should take an hour at the most.

Your daily commitments and to dos shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to do.

Are you willing to spend two hours a week and a few days a year to stay on track, work on the critical issues, save yourself hundreds of hours (not working on the wrong or lower priority issues)?

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