Yellow Belt Introduction: Your 90-Day Gameplan (It’s Just a Bigger Sprint!)
We assume you have now mastered the 1-2 week Sprints and want to move on. If not, go back to Sprints and start there.
Sprints are important tasks but very focused on the here and now. We need something with a longer timeframe so that we can start to do strategic tasks to improve the overall business direction and health and so further reduce your Owner’s stress.
We call this aspect of our simple planning technique a 90 Day GamePlan.
Here’s the good news: A Gameplan is simply a 90-day Business Sprint.
If you’ve mastered the 1-2 week Sprint to tackle smaller issues, you can certainly master the 90-Day GamePlan to tackle your business’s biggest challenges. It’s the same simple, proven system—just on a slightly longer timeline.
Why a 90-Day Sprint Works
A 90-Day Gameplan gives you enough time to achieve something truly impactful—like launching a new service or fixing a critical system—but it’s short enough to keep you laser-focused.
We use the reliable Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) system you have already learnt to keep your progress moving forward, quarter after quarter.
Video explaining the 90 Day GamePlan System is just 6 minutes
The Destination, Not the Journey (For Now)
Before you start planning your next 90 days, take just a moment to ask yourself: “Where do I want my business to be in three years time?”
Don’t let this question overwhelm you! You don’t have to map out every single step today. Consider things like;
- business size?
- your income?
- is a comfortable life more important to you than continued growth with the associated workload?
- do you want to position the business for sale?
- what sort of services would you like to be offering? etc, etc
Simply having a rough three-year destination in your mind helps you ensure the work you do in the next 90 days is pushing you in the right direction.
Every 90 day GamePlan should be a step toward that bigger goal
Step 1: Plan Phase (Your 90-Day Roadmap)
In the Plan Phase, you decide on the 1-3 most critical, high-impact tasks you will complete in the next 90 days to move closer to your three-year goal.
1. Define Your Priorities: Review your list of candidate tasks. Which 1-3 items, if completed, would have the biggest impact on your business’s success and reduce your stress?
2. Choose Your Approach: Now that you know your 90-day focus, how will you execute it? You have two excellent options:
Develop Your Own Gameplan: Take your 1-3 critical priorities and break them down into smaller tasks, setting a target completion date 90 days from now.
Use a Prefabricated Gameplan: Save time and jumpstart your efforts by adopting one of our pre-built 90-Day Gameplans. These structured plans guide you through common business challenges, giving you the structure and expertise you need without having to build the roadmap from scratch.
By the end of the Plan Phase, you have a clear, realistic set of objectives for the next quarter. You’ve officially decluttered your mind and know exactly where to focus your energy.
Step 2: Do Phase (Execution)
This is the execution phase, where your daily and weekly Sprints are aligned with your larger 90-day goals.
Stay Focused: Your plan is your guide. Resist the urge to get distracted by “bright shiny objects” that pop up. Add them to your Candidates list for the next 90-day Gameplan, but keep your current focus clear.
Use Resources: Whether you are following your own plan or a prefabricated one, utilize our management training resources, forums, or courses to quickly solve any challenges you face during execution.
Step 3: Check & Act Phases (Review and Reset)
A 90-day Gameplan is successful only if it teaches you something.
Check: At the 90-day mark, step back and review. Did you hit your 1-3 goals? Why or why not? What did you learn about your business and your own capacity? Sometimes the GamePlan won’t turn out as expected. But this is actually good news! In less than 90 days you have learnt that this approach won’t work so you can pivot to something else. This is much better than going for a much longer period and then finding you have wasted all that time and money.
Act: Use the lessons learned to update your Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Quarterly GamePlanning and add any new Candidate tasks arising from your evaluation of the completed GamePlan to your list. Now start planning your next 90-day GamePlan. This continuous cycle of planning and improvement is how successful small businesses grow without the stress.
What’s Next?
Congratulations, you’ve learned the essential concept: a GamePlan is a manageable 90-day Sprint focused on your most important longer-term objectives.
The next step is to start planning your first GamePlan right now!
Get started by visiting our Small Business Planning page to access resources for developing your first 90-day Gameplan:
This article was provided by Scott Williams AO FAIDC. It describes the way best practice in many management areas has been brought together in the 12Faces GamePlan System. The Goal is to provide an easy to use and repeatable “flywheel” to improve small business owners’ outcomes. Scott is the Founder of NFP small business support services 12Faces and MentorSME and has a Philanthropic Foundation supporting students in education. Scott’s business Petals Network was National Small Business of the Year and 4 times in the Top 100 Fastest Growing Australian Businesses LinkedIn