The How-To's of Planning
I’ve been talking for a while now about how you can use this template or blueprint for starting, running, and growing your business.
It starts with a vision. Your vision answers what many people think of as the “why?”- why does this business exist? From there you go into creating goals. Goals answers the “what?”- what is your business going to do or accomplish? Once you have a very concrete set of goals, you make a plan. Your plan answers the question of “how?”- how will you accomplish the goals that you’ve set?
I’ve broken the steps of planning down into a series of worksheets that will guide you through the process of creating executable plans around your goals.
How to Create a Plan
Step 1: Brainstorm.
First, you’ve got to get everything out of your head and onto paper. I sometimes refer to this step as “opening the box”. Here is my resource guide for how to brainstorm effectively.
Step 2: Define your plan.
Once you’ve finished brainstorming, answer these 8 questions to define your plan. This will allow you to put some structure around your plan that will help you to think about it more concretely, and communicate clearly and set expectations with others around the plan and their role in it.
Use this worksheet by answering 8 questions that will define your plan.
Once you’ve completed each of these steps, you should have a pretty well formed plan that you or your team can begin to execute, one task at a time. Don’t forget that you’ll need to regularly check in on your progress and address any roadblocks or unforeseen issues that come up as you go.
Planning, like most things in business, is a fluid process. You may realize that something you thought was a task is actually a whole plan in and of itself, and needs to be defined and then broken up into smaller tasks. Conversely, you may realize that something you thought needed to be a whole plan is really just a task. The point is that you need to get organized around what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it before you jump straight into executing, and the planning process is a tool for doing just that.
Step 3: Identify your critical factors for success.
Critical factors for success are the things that will absolutely have to happen to reach your goal, and will require some work and effort from you. If you want to open up a second location, a critical factor for success might be finding the right building. However, if you already know exactly which building or location you want, then finding the right one isn’t a critical factor for success- instead, maybe its getting a bank loan or finding access to capital that would be the critical factor for success.
Once you identify all of the critical factors for success to reaching your goal, turn each one into a task. For example:
Goal: Open up a second store
Critical factor: Having the right location > Task: Find a commercial real estate agent in my area
Use this worksheet to identify each critical factor for success and turn it into a task.
Step 4: Identify the resources you’ll need to carry out each task.
To make sure you’ve thought through everything, use this worksheet to identify all of the resources that you’ll need to complete each task.
Use this worksheet to identify the resources you’ll need for each task.
Once you’ve completed each of these steps, you should have a pretty well formed plan that you or your team can begin to execute, one task at a time. Don’t forget that you’ll need to regularly check in on your progress and address any roadblocks or unforeseen issues that come up as you go.
Planning, like most things in business, is a fluid process. You may realize that something you thought was a task is actually a whole plan in and of itself, and needs to be defined and then broken up into smaller tasks. Conversely, you may realize that something you thought needed to be a whole plan is really just a task. The point is that you need to get organized around what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it before you jump straight into executing, and the planning process is a tool for doing just that.
