Front Office Box

The start of the year 2010 and it’s time for planning. It just sort of feels right at this time of year, and there’s no end of blog articles reminding us. The problem is there’s too much motivation and not enough management in most of the self improvement stuff.

Maybe because I’m British (?) the How to do things is much more important to me than the Why. If I don’t have a real motivation for planning my efforts won’t last. On the other had if I have a methodology I’ll probably stick to the task, even as the motivation wanes.

A long time ago now somebody introduced me to this simple method. Take a look and see if it might work for you.

Planning Methodology

Mission

Exactly what are we going to do and why. A business might use this section to define its value proposition.
Example – in Avantrasara we want to reverse the typical innovation and adoption process for medical devices, through having clinicians define what they need and engineers build it, funded by EU research grant.

Strategy

The Big Picture – how it’s going to work
Example – in Avantrasara we already have one project underway. There’s one main objective – using BANN to anticipate adverse events – but we’ll build a number of businesses to commercialise it with our Clinical Research Hub, Open Source BANN software, Contract Research and Licensing Technology.

Objectives and Milestones

Exactly what we’re going to achieve and the interim steps along the way – milestones which tell us how we’re doing.
Example – For Avantrasara I haven’t finished this yet so my first milestone will be set some objectives

SWOT

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats – time to be really honest with ourselves
Example – For Avantrasara I have a pretty clear picture of these, but this isn’t the place to share them if you’ll forgive me.

Issues Arising

Problems we have to solve – these might be milestones.
Example – One for Avantrasara is we need to find another research grant to support more detailed discovery.

Action Plan

Who will do what, and when – This becomes a living document, as things get checked off, and new actions arise.
1 – Steve – Set Objectives by Jan 31st

Get Real

If a jobs worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.
If it aint working stop and get on with something more productive.

Soon we’ll publish a white paper and template for this. If you’d like to know when it’s available for download leave a comment, or send me an email at steve@frontofficebox.us.

If you’ve seen anything of our software you’ll recognise some of the concept. In our own businesses we don’t use the full deal for everything, but we do use the same philosophy for everything.

January 6th, 2010 - Posted in Management Built In  |  Add a Comment