Ten Tips for Business Planning

By Rod Wong-Pan

1. Commit to the plan

A business plan will take time and resources. Without a firm commitment by the business owner(s), a business plan will not deliver expected outcomes.

2. Contemplate for the future

A business plan should contain ambitions, actions and resources for the medium and longer term. This will require some far sighted thinking perhaps 2-5 years ahead.
3. Review other business plans

Review as many other business plans as you can obtain, preferably for organisations which will be of similar size as your own. Reading other plans will provide an insight into the format, language and style that may be useful for your own plan.

4. Know your audience

Your business plan has a purpose: action planning, communication, funding application etc. Ensure that the plan is directed towards this audience containing appropriate information, analysis and detail.

5. Formalise the planning process

Adopt a planning process. Identify the business stakeholders and invite them to the planning process. Let them know the importance of their contributions and ask them to prepare according to your agenda.

6. Involve a disinterested party

This can be a useful way to re-examine existing business assumptions and challenge ‘group-think’.

7. Research your product/service offering, the market and competitors

Your business plan should not be developed in isolation. The more information that you can obtain regarding all aspects of your business, the market place and competition, the better informed will be your decision making.

8. Conduct the planning over a number of sessions

The planning process is time consuming and necessarily involves a meeting of different minds, opinions and experience. Short, regular sessions are generally more effective and efficient than entire day or half-day sessions. Take necessary breaks to ensure a fresh approach. An independent facilitator can be helpful to keep the meeting focused.

9. Deliverable actions

An outcome of the plan will be a number of delegated actions assigned to various personnel. Ensure these actions are broken down into weekly ‘bites’ to demonstrate a continual commitment to the plan.

10. Review regularly

A plan is only as good as the information on which it was developed. Any change in conditions or circumstances may require anything from minor editing to a wholesale revision of the document. Reviewing will keep track of agreed actions as well as monitoring changing business conditions.

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