New Year, new plans

A client of mine asked me whether I had done my planning for the next year? I answered “Yes” and “No”.

Another asked, “how to get a fresh perspective for the year that lies ahead? How to avoid that January turns out to be more of the same?”

My advice: Take a day or two and make a concentrated effort to think about issues which may affect your company and then follow this up with a bit of formal planning. Start from where you are. If in the current year you ensured that each month you tended to the process of strategic and operational planning, if you had chunked planning into 12 brief monthly segments, the effort at the end of a year that goes into developing a new Annual Plan is insightful, surprisingly creative and highly motivating.  This process puts me into flow.

Of course, next year’s plan already exists to a large extent. My December Balanced Scorecard (BSC) was the 12th installment, in practice, of my Annual Plan. Planning is a dynamic process. In reviewing my brief monthly plans of each of the previous 12 months, I can track how new client needs or their problems became new objectives that led to new or enhanced products and services during the year. (All my plans are in the form of tables.)

A decade ago I developed a turnaround/Plan and Accelerate Your Business Programme. I keep a brief summary in table format of all the products and services which my company provides in the left-hand column and describe the deliverables concerning each in the right-hand column. The purpose of my company is tied to the existence of my clients and more specifically to their needs. This table assists me in ensuring that the various components form a cohesive whole.

My clients’ needs are direction-giving. Each need stimulates me to further my research in specific areas and to increase my knowledge and skills. Every month I give a thorough glance at my strategic objectives.  I enter new operational objectives on my monthly BSC, and develop or enhance my products or services. After delivery, I update my turnaround package with an entry or two.

This table is part of my plan-execute-review-replan process. I find it is easy to make adjustments to this package. My advice to any company is that you also define your products and services in a similar manner. Each month review this table. How can you improve or expand your products and services?  How well do you actually produce or deliver them? Which ones should be renewed or discarded? Which ones make your company grow?

Keep your hand at planning and execution. If you work in small monthly chunks the task and effort that goes into annual planning becomes an enjoyable, fairly swift process. In fact, my next Annual Plan already lies dormant in the outcomes of my 12 monthly chunks. But more is required.

What I do in the first week of January is to step back and not plan.

I conduct an internal scenario conversation. I evaluate the context in which my company finds itself. How has my industry changed? I review the scope of my playing field. Should I expand or contract my playing field? I consider the players (including clients and competition) and what the most important ones are doing. Are the rules of the game changing?  What uncertainties can I detect in the external environment that might influence how I have to play the game? I will review and update four scenarios: a world scenario, a South African scenario; a consultant industry scenario and figure out how in which scenario I should place my company. Where am I and where should I be going?

The second part of the scenario conversation starts with a review of my strengths and weaknesses and the development of a number of strategic options.  I will take decisions about what should and could be done immediately and what has to be done as 2010 progresses. I will carefully consider whether I should adjust my direction.

Only then do I do formal planning. I will rethink my strategic plan which covers five years.  As a last step, I will develop a new annual Balanced Scorecard.

Is this not what you, more or less, also do?

The scenario conversation is quite formidable and intense – if you start from scratch. But if you have kept a hand on your plans during the year, the information and data at hand will be very useful. The global and local reviews which news commentators and economic and political analysts provide at the end of each year are a bonus.

Take a day or two to rethink matters. Do nothing else. Do not over plan. Refine and further develop your plans on a month-by-month basis until December.

Yes, my plan for the next year exists to some extent, but I still have to withdraw and conduct a scenario conversation. It will bring new insights. And it will necessitate changes.

Enjoy your planning.

I wish you every success in the year that lies ahead!

Albert