Business Planning:- Review

Step 10

Review Your Plan

You should spend one day a year reviewing your strategic direction. Goals will constantly change as your situation changes.

What you uncovered during your discovery phase may no longer be relevant. Goals get achieved, or get discarded because they are no longer relevant. Why are they no longer relevant? Consider the following:

1. People get married and divorced.
2. People die and people get born.
3. People get sick, and people get better.
4. People get older, and none of us seem to get younger.
5. The weather is ever changing.
6. Commodities go through their cycles.

So a plan should be constantly reviewed, because it can quickly become out of date. How often should you review it? As often as appropriate. You don’t want to be chasing every new fad, but you do need to be adaptable.

Sometimes we get far too busy doing what we are doing to be bothered about reviewing our plan. The 7^th Habit in Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is Sharpen The Saw. Because of a blunt saw, your progress is slowed to the point you haven't got time to stop to sharpen the saw. Hence, falling even further behind.

Stop what you are doing, sharpen your senses, gain some clarity, and rejoin the fray.

As wise man once told me "when you're in a swamp and up to your neck in crocodiles, it's hard to remember your purpose for being there in the first place is to drain the swamp.