We’ve all reached that time of year where our company does annual planning. Usually this means putting managers in a room and getting them to create a PowerPoint presentation. We really want planning to be more than that.
If you get put into such a PowerPoint generating room, remember the first step of annual planning. Take some time to look at last year’s plan and ask these questions:
- What assumptions did we make last year? (You wrote them down, right?) Did they happen?
- What goals did we set last year? (Please tell me your plan had goals.) Did we meet them?
- What tasks did we define last year (You made a list of tasks and owners…you must have.) Did the tasks happen?
And the big question:
- Did our plan work?
Only after you’ve looked at least year’s plan and determined whether it worked, do you have enough information to create next year’s plan.
Unless of course, you didn’t document your assumptions, goals, or tasks. In that case, you should do that in this year’s plan.
