Planning

Planning is that critical phase between thinking and doing that greatly increases your chance of success.

Writing a plan, rather than roughly working out in your head what you want to do, may seem like an un-necessary burden or even a constraint to your actions but in fact the process of doing so has enormous value. By writing a plan for putting your strategy into action you will benefit in the following ways:

Planning forces you to develop a series of goals for your strategy. How will you know you have succeeded? Writing down goals that are time bound, specific and related to the task is in itself a big motivator both for your self and those who are working for you. Everyone can be clear about what you are going to achieve and how it fits to the overall direction of the business.

Planning helps you identify obstacles in the way of achieving your objectives. Once identified, their effects can be minimised or negated.

Planning lets you break large tasks down into smaller, more manageable ones. The journey of a thousand miles is a journey of many thousands of steps. Knowing how many you expect to make each day lets you calculate how long the journey should take so you know how much food you need to sustain you along the way.

Planning lets you make best use of your resources. Nothing happens unless there are people to do it. Having the right people with the right skills with the right amount of time to complete their tasks is critical to success. The planning process allows you to make sure that all the necessary resources are going to be available. If there are gaps then you can put in place processes to make sure they are filled ahead of the time they are needed.

Planning allows you to systemise the routine and humanise the exceptions.  No one knows for sure what will happen tomorrow and uncertainty rises with time. There are some things that are easier to be fairly certain about than others. Even things than normally behave one way can easily be disrupted (think what happened the last time you had a power cut or a serious delay on a long journey).

Planning won’t stop unexpected things from happening or things from sometimes going wrong, but it will greatly increase your chances of surviving them.

One of the most effective ways we have found to help companies develop their plans is through workshops. Using a structured approach, skilled facilitation and sensible time blocks, effective plans can be quickly developed. If you would like to hear more details of how we work with clients, contact us now.