I was recently with a client who wanted to show me his business plan. Being interested in the planning process I was delighted to take a look. What followed was five minutes of searching and moving paper from one side of the desk to the other; eventually the plan was located. When I blew the dust off it I found a beautifully bound document which met all of the fundamentals; SWOT analysis, competitor analysis, PEST analysis, goals and strategies etc.

It was clear that a massive amount of time and effort had gone into this document of which my client was rightly proud. Unfortunately, judging by the dust and the fact that it took five minutes to find, the business plan was rarely, if ever, accessed or consulted!

Crazy isn’t it... or is this the reality for most businesses? Due to time and business pressures do we rarely, if ever, look at our plan and judge our actual performance against our missions, objectives, strategies and tactics (MOST)?

To be effective the business plan must:

• Be referred to regularly with actual performance measured against planned outcomes.
• Have input from everybody in the organisation, all of your team need to have ownership of the plan.
• Be fluid and dynamic, it needs to change as and when circumstances change.

A massive amount of time and effort goes into producing your business plan, which is wasted if it ends up as a book weight or door jam!