Tài liệu Seven Steps to a Successful Business Plan Chapter 2-3 pdf

The Practical Guidelines for

Building a Business Plan in

Five Pages

This chapter explains the five major elements that make up the

business plan, defines the critical terms used in business plan￾ning, demonstrates how the components of a business plan fit as an

integrated model, defines logical steps in writing a business plan,

and describes the complete business planning cycle. You will learn

the activities required to implement a correct planning cycle and

the methods to develop a 5-Page Business Plan model.

25

CHAPTER

2

This chapter sets the stage for the development of the actual

business plan document. Five major elements of the business plan

are defined in specific terms. While the five are discussed as sepa￾rate elements, the information for each is developed during a sin￾gle planning session. Do not hold separate sessions to build strate￾gic plans then operational plans. The efforts would be redundant

and overlapping. Over a long period of time I tested the methods

described here with clients and found the single session to be the

most cost-effective and efficient way to manage the process. As

information is completed at the one session, it is grouped into the

five subordinate plans.

DEFINING YOUR BUSINESS PLAN

A business plan is a consolidation document that defines the

parameters of how a business operates. It communicates strategic

direction as well as specific goals, methods of achieving the goals,

and the management development activities needed to reach the

vision. It is a master document that serves as an umbrella for all

events taking place within the company.

A business plan is the one place you turn to for completeness

in your story. Since it contains the key elements of both hard and

soft processes, it must be inclusive. Hard processes are those nor￾mally thought of as goals and objectives. Soft processes are the

intangible but critical elements such as values, philosophy, and

principles. In years past, planners avoided so-called soft or esoteric

processes such as values because they could not directly connect

them to the bottom line. Now smart executives work with values,

philosophies, and principles early in their planning activities. They

know the importance of integrating both the soft and hard process￾es. These executives see the relationship between goal failure and

gaps in the operational values of their companies.

An important function of a business plan is to set the direction

of the company. Setting direction means more than setting goals.

The business plan serves to tell a complete story of where you are

26 Seven Steps to a Successful Business Plan

going, how you are going to make the journey, and what business

behavior you will practice on the way. The plan becomes a road

map, blueprint, and template for employees to follow in accom￾plishing the goals:

■ The road map provides a path with markers of incremental

progress along the way. Because the plan is well defined,

employees can measure their success.

■ The blueprint feature of the business plan provides employ￾ees an overall design for the company’s actions. It shows

how the parts and pieces fit together, defines the relation￾ships, and explains the master schema of the future.

■ The template provides models for business units and teams

to build their own local action plans. If the company has

a plan, then a work team must have a plan.

Business plans should meet certain criteria. They need to be

user-friendly; therefore I present a simplified, workable document

for a complex topic. The document needs to encourage rather than

discourage its use. It needs to reflect the same goals and objectives

that people pursue each day in their work. A plan fails when its

goals are different from the work requirement. Another use of a

business plan is to provide guidance when you don’t know what to

do. This becomes the direction and benchmark for your actions.

HOW THE 5-PAGE BUSINESS PLAN WORKS

One of the main reasons resistance to business planning happens is

because of the paperwork it produces. When we think of planning

we automatically envision reams of papers, three-ring binders, and

thick bound reports. These perceptions cause people to avoid plan￾ning. It doesn’t have to be that way.

The methods I propose short-circuit some of the resistance to

planning by simplifying the documents. Over the past fifteen years

Building a Business Plan in Five Pages 27

I have helped several companies condense the bulk of their plans

down to five pages. These core plans contain the essence of what

you need to do. The often-told legend of President Lincoln writing

the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope holds a hidden

truth. His address was short, to the point, and told a story that cap￾tivated the audience. A second example of the brevity concept is

found in Winston Churchill’s apology to a friend about the length

of his letter: “I could have made it shorter if I had more time.” We

can build business plans using the same concepts of brevity, suc￾cinctness, and focused text. You can tell your story using a business

plan with only five components of a single page each.

The Strategic Plan—Forming the Heart of Your

Story

The strategic plan is the first of the five types of plans (as shown in

Figure 2-1). It is the starting point for the other four types of plans

and the heart of your story. Get this wrong and the rest of your plan

and your story is suspect. Get it right and the power of your people

will be unleashed because they want to know where the company

is headed. Employees want to believe that something exists in the

future. The strategic plan is a single-page document that defines

where and how you want to position your company. It examines a

list of factors that might influence your future. A diagram of how

you format the strategic plan into a single page is shown in

Appendix B: The 1-Page Strategic Plan. Topics you must address in

your strategic plan are:

■ Assumptions

■ Guidance

■ Vision Statement

■ Mission Statement

■ Strategic Goals

■ Objectives

28 Seven Steps to a Successful Business Plan

■ Strategies

■ Strategic Intent

■ Philosophy

■ Focus

■ Values

■ Principles

The Operational Plan—Bringing Your Plan to Life

The operational plan is the dynamic component that brings the

strategic plan to life (see Figure 2-2). It is the first of ten years of the

complete business plan and is developed simultaneously with the

other four components. It defines how the company accomplishes

its strategic intent on a daily or annual basis. It breaks down the

Building a Business Plan in Five Pages 29

Figure 2-1. The strategic plan sets the direction of your company.

strategic goals into objectives and tasks to make them more under￾standable and manageable. The operational plan also provides

information to executives on how well the staff carries out its func￾tional activities. Along with the execution of functional activities

comes the requirement for staff coordination. Work cannot be

effective unless it is closely coordinated across staffs or functions.

The operational plan also helps management teams implement

actions. Because it identifies the persons held accountable, the

operational plan becomes a good benchmark for reporting process￾es of key programs and projects. This becomes the benchmark for

performance measures of both the individual and the company. A

format for this plan is found in Appendix C: The 1-Page

Operational Plan.

30 Seven Steps to a Successful Business Plan

Figure 2-2. The operational plan sets the strategic plan into motion on a

practical level.