Business Owners are Busy People! Dump “Pie in the Sky” 5 Year Business Plans
We developed a routine for getting more done faster using the “Work Smarter, not Harder” mantra
We were “National Small Business of the Year” and appeared 4 times in the “National 100 Fastest Growing Businesses” list using this approach
This is our rapid introduction to what to do and how to do it to get you working smarter straight away. Sections link off to more advanced discussions as you get better at using the routine.
This material is based on best practice from people and companies that are expert at getting things done. We have re-packaged this material for smaller businesses. Yellow Belt
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Table of Contents
Also available on our Podcast Channel “12Faces.business” in Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music apps.
Consider Dumping Unworkable 5 Year Formal Business Plans!
Many small business owners are hard pressed to know where they will be in 3 to 6 months; let alone in five years time!
But professional advisors and conventional wisdom often push the owner to “develop a 5 year Plan”.
This may work for well settled and somewhat constrained businesses that can’t, or don’t, change very much e.g. a hairdresser or a restaurant. But then, they probably don’t need a detailed plan anyway because they work on the “more of the same” principal.
Why bother to build a formal and detailed 5 year plan when the one thing you can be sure of is that you will not hit your (totally guesswork) planned target.
We have developed an alternative planning process based on our years of experience at the coalface and feedback from owners using it.
This article introduces the concept and links to many of our supporting resources.
Clarify What Success Means to You
As the business owner, your business exists to deliver to YOU what you desire from running your business.
But, it won’t be able to do that very well while your idea of ‘success’ is not crystal clear in your mind.
Until it is, you run the risk of ‘chasing the next bright shiny object’ in an often futile attempt to be ‘successful’. Without having a clear image of what that means in your mind. Consequently, you won’t know if you reach “success”; and even then, you only get there by accident.
Consider how silly it would be to announce to the family that “we are going on a trip” then leave the room. The family is left wondering where they are going and consequently what travel arrangements have to be made and what to pack! Yet we often do that with our own business; leaving staff and everyone else unclear about the direction of the business.
This is the first, and necessary, part of any “work smarter, not harder” strategy.
Picture Success in 3 Year's Time
Your idea of “success” will change over time. Many business owners typically go through a cycle of:
- Solopreneur / Start-up where success is survival.
- Micro Business (1-4 staff) where success is affording new staff.
- Small Business (5-19 staff) where success is hiring the first middle managers and learning more about hands-off management.
- Lifestyle/ Investor where success is stepping back from a well functioning business and enjoying life more.
- Exit where success is selling your business successfully.
As you can see, each stage has quite a different focus (more on this link). For you to successfully steer your business now, you need a good idea of where you want to be in (say) 3 years time. That way all your decisions have to pass the test “is this the best way to get me closer to my destination”.
Your Three Year Goal or Destination
Here we use the term Destination to refer to what would constitute “success” in your mind at the end of 3 years.
This can change (say) annually when you reappraise your business direction.
Your Destination is your ‘north star’, which always brings you back to the direction you should be taking to realise the outcome of your planning. It helps to avoid the pitfalls of multitasking which, all too often, business owners fall into.
There is more on Goals setting, and in particular SMART Goals, on this link.
Pause and Reflect
In our experience, this setting a Destination step will gel better in your mind if you stop at this point.
Quickly jot down what your first impressions are of what “success” will look like for you in three years time.
Consider the desirable levels of:
- Rewards: salary + benefits + profit and any “toys” like cars that you want
- Acceptable workload
- Acceptable stress
This might be a bit harder than you first imagined, eh! Can you see that without a definition of success:
- You have no real idea of what you are aiming for.
- What will get you there.
- Or even knowing if you have been successful!
Now take the time to write down your 3 Year Destination outcome in a place you can refer to it often to keep you focused. If your circumstances change, your Destination can change as well. It might be a good idea to review the 3 Year Destination each financial quarter. This is because you will have the experience from each improvement cycle (discussed below) to see if it remains your preferred destination.
Add the Destination date to the Destination so it acts as a sort of countdown time. e.g. “By 1/7/28, I will ….”
More information on;
Also available on our Podcast Channel “12Faces.business” in Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music apps.
Building a Wall Brick by Brick
Now that you have your 3 Year Destination in mind (your brick wall), it is clear that we have a number of stages between now and its completion:
- A foundation.
- Laying brick by brick and eventually
- A capping.
It is the same with building your business.
It is very difficult for anyone to remain focused on something 3 years out. The time-frame is just too long. So you need other, shorter term, mini plans that you can focus on. This also gives you a sense of achievement more frequently than once every 3 years!
We suggest you have a mini plan for each Financial Quarter. Our reasoning is:
- Given that you have a business to run, you need enough time to fit in meaningful, additional, improvement work in your short term mini plan.
- A Financial Quarter fits in with your accounting cycle so that you can measure results in financial terms.
- This time frame allows you to make 4 sets of meaningful improvements to your business a year.
Introducing 12Faces GamePlans
We have named these mini-plans GamePlans.
A dictionary definition of a GamePlan is:
“Definition of GAME PLAN (noun): plan for winning competition or achieving goal” Macmillan Dictionary
The 12Faces GamePlans are a custom-build planning strategy for small business owners that takes into account your realities when navigating the direction of your businesses.
All GamePlans are designed around our Mission of your Sustainable Business Success.
GamePlans build a repeatable routine using the same principals that made Toyota great.
- You decide what is important to improve in the next Financial Quarter.
- Then you orchestrate a series of short Sprints to bring home that improvement.
- If you can’t reach the original Quarterly destination, you pivot off to something more achievable .
That way, you move forward as quickly as possible on what is most important at that point in time. But, remain flexible to shoot off in a different direction with minimal lost time and money if circumstances change; as they all too often do in the small business world.
A GamePlan is a 3 month planning period with a micro Goal in mind
Be Successful with a Ratchet Cycle
We like the concept represented in this graphic. A Ratchet is a cycle of events that are always moving forward and are prevented from moving backwards.
Our Mission for your Sustainable Business Success aims to help you achieve just that. Moving ever forward to your next “Success” Destination by working smarter; not harder. At the same time, taking care not to overdo progress and run the risk of falling backwards.
Reliable progress is best achieved by developing a routine that works for you. Then following that routine through each cycle to minimise the chances of a mis-step.
More on Ratchets on this link
Reliable Routines
This approach of having a cycle of reliable routines, is not new or unique to 12Faces. It is a well established process in very successful companies. Early implementers include Toyota and it contributed to their outstanding success against western car manufacturers.
One very useful and standardised approach to what to do during each GamePlan ratchet cycle is to implement a Plan Do Check Adapt (PDCA) Cycle. This will ensure each part of the GamePlan execution is well thought out in advance and that the results can be measured and evaluated.
Basically, the PDCA Cycle comprises:
- Plan: what to do and who to do what. Means any implementation problems are considered in advance.
- Do: is the actual execution of the tasks in the project
- Check: means measuring the actual outcome against the expected outcome set in the Plan stage.
- Adapt: refers to considering the task outcomes and deciding what to do next. Normal work practices need to be “Adapted” for any successful task outcomes. Particularly if they need to be retained so that the improvements are cemented into normal operating procedures.
The PDCA Cycle is all about “Work Smarter, not Harder”
You can read more about How the PDCA Cycle Builds Important Routines on this link
PLAN Your Next Quarterly GamePlan
Once you are familiar with using GamePlans, you can design your own system. For now, we suggest the following:
- Design the GamePlan as something to be done over one Financial Quarter. This gives a reasonable period to achieve what you want. It also allows you to compare this, and the previous Quarter’s, results to see if you have to make any course corrections to reach your 3 year Destination.
- Decide on what you want to achieve in the Quarter, and how you will know if you have been successful.
For example, a GamePlan to “reduce overhead costs by 10%” is much better than simply “reduce costs”. This is because it gives you a focus and a test of success. - Early on, just aim for one GamePlan per Quarter. Having several goals risks tipping you into the misery of multitasking. In a larger business, you might progress to divisional / departmental GamePlans within the department’s specialisation.
- Write the GamePlan down and, where relevant, share it with your whole team. This is so that they are aware of the main innovation thrust for the quarter. Even workers in routine work slots like to feel things are progressing.
Assemble the Candidate List
Most business owners have no shortage of things they want to do!
Rather than pick the first thing that turns up in your mind, we encourage you to take a few minutes to jot down a list of things you would like to resolve in a forthcoming Quarterly GamePlan; even if it is not the next one.
Once you get into the swing of the ratchet PDCA cycle you will probably keep a list of candidate GamePlans that you add to when something occurs to you as a candidate. For reasons we discuss shortly, this list might be a spreadsheet.
Candidates should be designed with the following in mind:
- What you think that you can achieve as an outcome within a Quarter, using what time and other resources you have available to execute.
- Setting a more ambitious GamePlan, than you can finalise within a Quarter, just leaves you with a host of unfinished business.
- It is better to have a GamePlan that you finish early in the Quarter than one that does not get completed.
By way of example, candidate GamePlans might be:
- Work out how to move from Solopreneur to hiring your first staff.
- Consider how to reposition a failing business for success.
- Optimise a business by removing inefficiencies accumulated over several years of operations.
- Set up a scalable, reliable, sales funnel etc.
Picking The Most Important Areas for Next GamePlan
Looking at the above list, it is clear that some might be a higher priority than others. It might be wise to reposition a failing business before you think of hiring more staff, for example. Also, not every feasible GamePlan will produce the same improvement in the business. Therefore, our system has a prioritising process to help you chose the GamePlan with the “best” outcome.
- In this introductory stage, we encourage you to just pick one that addresses what ever your greatest “pain” is presently. Once you spend a few minutes thinking about it, your gut will tell you what is your biggest problem.
- Don’t be overly ambitious and complex in your choice as you don’t want to fail on the first pass. This is particularly true if you have staff involved as this might put them off future Quarterly GamePlans.
- On the other hand don’t set the hurdle too low. Succeeding at a low hurdle won’t give you the buzz you will get from a harder one. Also, you might finish the GamePlan before the time allowed, which wastes time and can lead to a loss of direction.
- Keep in mind that not all things are equally impactful. The “80/20 Rule” says that 80% of improvement lies with 20% of the available activities. A focus on the 20% can lead to an astounding 16 times faster improvement.
When uncertain, it is better to set a GamePlan goal you can reach with, say, 70% confidence and the rest is a “stretch” goal.
Choosing the most important area to work on first is “work smarter, not harder” at its best.
We discuss more on How to Prioritise Work on this link
We suggest there are four types of tasks you can put into any 90 day GamePlan;
- the most important is the one big thing holding you back from reaching your Destination as soon as possible. This is the Constraint; and is Mission Critical. Read more in Prioritising article and Constraints specifically
- Incremental Improvement (AKA Kaizen) of each of the main products and systems in your business. Not all of them will need Kaizen each GamePlan but some will. Prioritize these Kaizen steps as well so you are always doing the most important first. You might not get them all done but no matter; they can stick around for the next Quarterly GamePlan.
- Personal Professional Development: your business is a reflection of your personal skill level. Undoubtedly, you will be holding your business back from time to time because you don’t know how to do something – or you might not even be aware of something that could be done (the so called Rumsfeld “I Don’t Know what I Don’t Know” dilemma). You can set personal priorities in any GamePlan to research areas you are not strong in so you are better prepared when they become mission critical. Learn more
- Preventative Maintenance. Just as infrastructure like bridges and roads is regularly maintained, there are aspects of your business that will have preventive maintenance requirements from time to time to prevent them from deteriorating. These might include e.g. customer retention activity and accounting cycles.
Although each type of task might be a priority, they have different urgencies. Consider the old story of putting rocks, pebbles and sand into a jar. If you put the sand in first, you are going to have trouble fitting in the pebbles and rock. If you start with the rocks, then pebbles then sand, it will work much better.
Consider your Quarterly Goal to be your Rocks so it gets the most attention. Kaizen projects are the Pebbles and get the next priority on your time. Maintenance projects are your sand and get the least priority. This will reduce the amount of time you are distracted by incidental (maintenance) tasks that prevent you reaching your quarterly goals.
The following DOING step outlines how to execute your GamePlan in a series of sprints, ratcheting you towards your GamePlan Destination.
Prefab GamePlans
The priorities in many businesses are often similar.
To save you using a lot of time doing research on how to execute your chosen GamePlan, we have assembled the framework for a solution to a number of common GamePlans.
By starting with our Prefab GamePlans, you can reduce the amount of research and planning you have to do. You can still modify the GamePlan as you wish to meet your own circumstances. These are just a timesaving starting point.
They also serve to alert you to things that “you don’t know, you don’t know” so they can save you from missing out on important issues.
Pause and Reflect
Before moving on, and for practice purposes, take a few minutes to ponder on what your candidate GamePlans might be, and how you would prioritise them, to choose your first Quarterly GamePlan.
This will help crystallise the concept of the Quarterly GamePlan, and its design, in your mind.
It might also demonstrate that picking the “right” GamePlan to do needs you to juggle a lot of balls at once; and hence our prioritising process.
Also available on our Podcast Channel “12Faces.business’ in Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music apps.
Also available on our Podcast Channel “12Faces.business” in Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music apps.
DOING: getting the work done in your GamePlan
The second step in the PDCA cycle is the DO stage.
This is where you carry out whatever tasks are necessary to make your quarterly GamePlan dreams come true.
In our system, there are three issues to conquer:
- How to manage the workload.
- What are the steps that need to be covered to get a complete and working solution to the GamePlan.
- How do we do, or achieve, those steps that have to be completed for the GamePlan to be completed.
Sprinting Through the PDCA DOING Cycle
At this point, you have a 90 day GamePlan and associated PDCA Cycle. Although much shorter than the 3 year Destination, the 12 weeks in a Financial Quarter is still a long time to work out what to do in advance. It’s also hard to know the outcomes of your efforts as they progress so setting down tasks 90 days into the future almost certainly means they will not be entirely necessary by the time you get to them.
Set 1-2 week Sprints:
Rather than set a rigorously designed 90 day program of work, it is far easier to just choose “what’s next” that you can do in a short period – say 1-2 weeks. This 1-2 weeks is often referred to as a “Sprint”. This technique has spun out of the IT sector where speed and flexibility are critical; just like they are for your business’s development.
Use Sprints and look forward in detail for 1-2 weeks:
At the end of each Sprint, you can decide what is the most important task for the next Sprint. That might be to continue down the same path, if everything is going OK, or to “pivot” in a new direction if some other priority has come up.
The length of the Sprint is up to you:
It will be affected by how much time you can work on the tasks within the Sprint – given your routine workload – and so progress the Sprint. Sprints in smaller businesses may tend to be shorter than in larger, more stable, slower changing, businesses.
Sprints should also use a PDCA Cycle as that is our adopted method of doing things systematically. The Sprint PDCA cycle does not need to be too complex as your Sprints are fairly short. Not much time will be lost even if the Sprint does not work out as hoped; as will always happen from time to time and no fault is attached. To minimize the risk of lost time, we suggest doing “risky” Sprints first if possible. if it does fail, you have lost the minimum time.
You can read more about sprints in these articles:
Pause and Reflect
Before moving on, take a few minutes to outline the PDCA Cycle for the Sprint you selected above.
You don’t need to do this in great detail. Early on, it is enough for you to put down some dot points on:
- What you Plan to do.
- How you will Do it.
- What measurable outcomes to Check that will tell you how the sprint went.
- Once finished the sprint, Adapt your standard work practices for what you learnt during the sprint’s PDCA Cycle.
By the way, we like to use a Mindmap for this as it allows you to quickly ‘sketch’ out the plan then move bits around as it evolves. We use (initially free) Mindomo for this as it works on every device and can be shared with others to work collaboratively; both on- and off-line if desired.
The next step outlines working out “what” to do.
Our "What to Do" Resources
In the sections above, we outlined how to identify the next quarterly GamePlan and we talked about breaking that into Sprints.
However, the GamePlan is a comparatively vague desirable outcome. We still need to know what to do, specifically, in each Sprint. Sometimes you will know what needs to be done to achieve this focus. Other times, you may not be sure.
We provide several means of working out “What to Do” in your Sprints.
Issue Diagnosis & Treatment
The main contributor is our Diagnostics System.
Just like a doctor takes the challenge to improve your health by listening to your Symptoms, does a Diagnosis and provides Treatment options, so does our Diagnostics System.
Sometimes, you have “Symptoms” in your business’s health but don’t know what is causing them. For example, Profit is dropping but it is not clear to you why it is dropping. The Symptoms component of Diagnostics will suggest possible reasons and you can choose the ones most likely. It will then take you to the second aspect of the Diagnostic System where you can find a set of possible Treatments for what ails your business.
Once you believe you know what must be remedied, you can run the problem through the Diagnostics System, which may suggest other treatments that could be used instead; or as well as.
For example, Income can be increased by at least 5 single and combined approaches:
- More sales – obvious but the following will also achieve increased Income but are less obvious.
- Higher prices – in fact, the likely biggest and fastest way to increase Income.
- Adding different products to your mix.
- Acquiring other businesses.
- Adding marketing channels, like e-commerce – and so on.
Our Diagnostic System shows possible reasons for your Symptoms and provides a reality check on possible solutions in case you have overlooked some alternatives.
- See our Diagnostic Alternatives on this link
- Start using our Diagnostics System on this link
Articles on Specific Topics
We are continually adding articles on specific topics of interest to our clients. These are added to the library of materials in 12Faces.
They are categorised, therefore, you can click the categorisation tag for a particular article of interest to find similar articles. See Category List and contents
You can also use the Search function in the heading of every page to find articles by specific words.
Pause and Reflect
Before moving on, take a few minutes to to test drive the drill down Diagnostics System. Use some of the real-world problems you arrived at in the homework on Ratchets and sprints above.
This will help you flesh out the general nature of your sprint and indicate specific areas to address your issues.
CHECK on Progress and Outcome
The intent of the CHECK phase of the PDCA Cycle is to see what worked and what didn’t and what progress was achieved towards the particular goal of this cycle.
The tools you use here are likely to be rather specific to your business and industry. That tends to govern what data is best for you to collect and monitor.
As you get more advanced, you can decide to use one of the host of Dashboard tools commercially available to bring all your data together in one place. See the Zoho Analytics tool for an example of this functionality.
We have several tools, like TrendBoard and its siblings, that accept your historical financial and sales information. They warn of unfavourable trends that might not yet be obvious in the workplace.
By monitoring these trends on a regular (monthly, quarterly and annual) basis you can see at a glance when unfavourable trends are appearing. You can then have a Sprint or GamePlan to rectify the issue before your business deteriorates.
This historical information can be used for predictive, “what if”, type questions. You can use our ChangeBoard and its siblings to help predict the outcome of a change . You can ask, for example:
- How much does Revenue need to increase to afford a new staff member.
- What impact does a Price change have on Profit etc.
Predictions like this make it easier to decide what to focus on in a Sprint. And,get better estimates of the outcomes of the sprints focused on such changes.
We discuss the CHECK phase in more detail in this PDCA article.
Pause and Reflect
How well do you check and understand the progress from your planning cycle?
It is easy for lots of activity to give a false impression of lots of productivity; the so-called “busy work”.
An overall goal for you and your business is to work less rather than more. You won’t know if you efforts are productive without a “Check” step. Monitoring / Checking lets you steadily increase productive activity and strip out less productive work.
ADAPT: Review and Consolidate Progress
With PDCA, each Sprint and GamePlan concludes with an “ADAPT” task.
This means at least two things:
- See what was learnt in the Sprint / GamePlan and what that indicates should be done in the next Sprint / GamePlan. This way you are regularly “adapting” to the events unfolding.
- Consolidate progress. You may have discovered new methods of executing your business. The best of these might be used to “Adapt” your Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that your staff can follow. This ratchets (see discussion above) you forward based on your learnings. It also reduces the risk of backsliding by adding to SOPs that staff follow. Not updating SOPs, or thinking you will “do later” (which is code for never), means you will not benefit from the outcome of the sprint.
The same reflection process should happen in the last couple of weeks of the Quarterly GamePlan. It may also inform your thinking about what the next quarter GamePlan should be.
We discuss the ADAPT phase in more detail in this PDCA article.
Pause and Reflect
Are your company-wide Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) being updated with the learnings you get from each Sprint and Quarterly GamePlan?
If not, the next time you insert a new staff member in a role, they start from scratch and all your accumulated expertise is lost. Worst, they may introduce their own, and worse, practices in a vacuum of knowing any better.
A Routine Makes it Work
If you think for a moment about the routines in your life that make it work:
- Cleaning your teeth every morning.
- Exercise every weekday.
- Taking out the rubbish on Wednesday.
These work because you have turned them into a routine or habit.
The same thing is important with your GamePlanning.
If you don’t make it a habit / routine, you will tend to forget or postpone (often indefinitely) the next step in the GamePlan Cycle.
Ideally, you set a specific time for the various decision-making steps in GamePlans including the following.
Next GamePlan
A good practice is to begin the set up of the next Gameplan in the last 2 weeks of the current GamePlan.
By then you know the outcome of the current GamePlan and know if you want more of the same. Or, if some other aspect of your business has moved into priority position.
Perhaps, start by updating the list of candidates for game planning and then apply the What’s Next methodology to choose the important one.
Next Sprint
Sprints should be around 1-2 weeks to be most effective.
Each sprint has a cycle; what to do, doing it, what was the outcome, rinse and repeat.
You should turn this into a routine so that (for example) first thing every Monday you review what parts of the sprint should be done in the coming week. You will inevitably under, or over, estimate, what you can do. So, list the Sprint tasks by priority order and then work through them during the week as far as you can progress.
Perhaps, allocate a little time at the end of the week, when your personal batteries are getting flat, to consider if your progress in this sprint is producing outcomes. Alternatively, consider if you should switch to another sprint or sprint task. That gives you the weekend for your background mental processes to ruminate about what to do; then you plan it the next Monday morning.
Remember Darwin; Adapt or Die!
GamePlans are not set in concrete.
Intentionally, they are a fluid process that responds to whatever is currently top of your priorities. If that changes, or if you come to the conclusion the GamePlan is not worth progressing, then feel free to change them.
But take a moment to consider why the GamePlan turned out to be the wrong one in case your prioritising process has some flaws and led you to pick the wrong one.
Make reviewing the appropriateness of the GamePlan part of the routine review at the end of each sprint.
You certainly don’t want to mindlessly follow a plan that is not achieving what you want!
Make GamePlans a Team Sport
If you develop your GamePlans alone, you are likely missing out on getting valuable inputs from others.
You may be pleasantly surprised at how much your staff enjoy contributing ideas to your quarterly GamePlans and each of the Sprints within them. They are at the ‘coalface’ of your business and may see opportunities that you are just not aware of. It also gives you the opportunity to have a bit of a celebration at the end of cycles to jointly share the results.
If you network your staff for brainstorming sessions, you start to benefit from the “network effect”. Two people have 1 connection, five people have 10 interconnections and 12 have 68 interconnections. So, involving others quickly increases the number of opportunities to get good ideas.
Understandably, you might be less keen to share your 3 year Destination with staff because it could impact on their careers. But you can look for outside mentors and/or your professionals like accountants to brainstorm with them.
Our Mission Control tool helps to co-ordinate your entire team’s efforts on your GamePlans.
If you have KPI and/or OKR for the staff in your business, they can be tuned at the outset of a GamePlan to reflect its goals. At the end of the GamePlan, staff can be individually and collectively assessed. Staff are likely to respond better when they know there is a personal goal for them!
Wrap-up
Our GamePlan System, outlined above, is based on best practice evolved by many leading management experts.
We have bundled it into a set of routines applicable, and useful, to small business. This is so that you can progress with your Sustainable Business Success plans as expeditiously as possible.
Ideally, you have done the “Pause and Reflect” exercises as you read this article.
Now, take a moment to consider:
- How much easier and realistic your preferred 3 year Destination is than a more specific and “exact” 5 year ‘business plan’.
- That Quarterly GamePlans focus on what is the most important immediate issue.
- 1-2 week Sprints give a regular sense of achievement, and a quick exit, when a current line of endeavour is not working out as expected.
Adapting this work flow to suit you and your business is learning to “work smarter, not harder”.
More Professional Development Materials
The following resources offer more ways to learn about GamePlans and how they improve your business process.
- our 12Faces Academy has a Course of GamePlans
- a podcast version of the full system 26mins
- a Study Guide with Q&A
Also available on our Podcast Channel “12Faces.business” in Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music apps.
GamePlan Study Guide
1. Overview of the GamePlan System
2. Core Concepts & Components
A. Clarifying Success: The 3-Year Destination
- Definition: Your personalized idea of what “success” means for your business in three years. This is your “north star” that guides all decisions.
- Why it’s crucial: Without a clear destination, business owners risk “chasing the next bright shiny object,” leading to accidental success or a lack of direction. It provides focus and a metric for evaluating progress.
- Evolution of Success: Recognizes that “success” changes as a business grows through stages (Solopreneur, Micro, Small, Lifestyle/Investor, Exit).
- Key Considerations for Destination: Desired levels of rewards (salary, benefits, profit, “toys”), acceptable workload, and acceptable stress.
- Review Frequency: Recommended to review annually or quarterly to ensure it remains relevant to changing circumstances and learnings from improvement cycles.
B. Building a Wall Brick by Brick: Quarterly GamePlans
- Rationale for Quarterly Plans: Long-term focus (3 years) is difficult to maintain. Quarterly mini-plans provide more frequent sense of achievement and align with financial cycles. Allows for 4 meaningful improvements annually.
- Definition of a GamePlan: A custom-built planning strategy for small business owners; a 3-month planning period with a micro goal in mind. It’s designed for “Sustainable Business Success.”
- Key Principles: Decide what’s important to improve in the next financial quarter, orchestrate a series of short Sprints to achieve it, and pivot if the original destination isn’t achievable. Emphasizes flexibility and minimal loss of time/money if circumstances change.
- Designing a GamePlan:
- Timeframe: One financial quarter (90 days).
- Specificity: Must have a clear, measurable outcome (e.g., “reduce overhead costs by 10%”).
- Focus: Aim for one GamePlan per quarter to avoid multitasking.
- Documentation & Sharing: Write it down and share with the team to ensure clarity and engagement.
- Candidate GamePlans:
- Selection: Based on what can be achieved within a quarter, considering available time and resources. Better to finish early than not at all.
- Prioritization: Pick the most important area; address the greatest “pain” first. Start with achievable goals to build confidence, but don’t set the hurdle too low.
- Types of Tasks:
- 1. Constraint (Mission Critical): The one big thing holding back progress toward the 3-Year Destination.
- 2. Incremental Improvement (Kaizen): Continuous improvement of products and systems.
- 3. Preventative Maintenance: Activities to prevent deterioration (e.g., customer retention, accounting cycles).
- Prefab GamePlans: Pre-assembled frameworks for common GamePlans to save research and planning time, acting as a “timesaving starting point” and revealing “things you don’t know, you don’t know.”
C. The Ratchet Cycle & PDCA
- Ratchet Concept: A cycle of events that always moves forward and is prevented from moving backwards. Represents reliable, forward progress in business.
- Reliable Routines: Progress is best achieved through established routines, mirroring practices of successful companies like Toyota.
- Plan Do Check Adapt (PDCA) Cycle: A standardized approach for executing each GamePlan ratchet cycle, ensuring thoughtful planning, measured results, and continuous adaptation.
- 1. Plan: Define what to do and who does what; consider implementation problems in advance.
- 2 Do: Execute the tasks.
- 3. Check: Measure actual outcome against expected outcome.
- 4. Adapt: Consider task outcomes, decide what to do next, and cement successful improvements into normal operating procedures (SOPs) to prevent backsliding.
- “Work Smarter, not Harder”: The PDCA Cycle embodies this mantra.
D. DOING: Executing with Sprints
- Challenge of 90-Day Plans: Too long for detailed advanced planning; outcomes are uncertain.
- Introducing Sprints: Short, focused work periods (1-2 weeks) derived from the IT sector, prioritizing speed and flexibility.
- Sprint Cadence: At the end of each Sprint, decide the most important task for the next, continuing the current path or “pivoting” if new priorities arise.
- Sprint Length: Flexible, depends on time available for tasks and business stability.
- Sprint PDCA: Sprints also use a simplified PDCA Cycle due to their short duration, minimizing lost time if outcomes aren’t as hoped.
E. “What to Do” Resources
- Issue Diagnosis & Treatment System: Functions like a doctor, diagnosing business “symptoms” (e.g., dropping profit) and suggesting possible causes and “treatments” (solutions). Offers a reality check on potential solutions and identifies alternatives.
- Articles on Specific Topics: Categorized and searchable library of materials providing detailed information on various business subjects.
- Prefab GamePlans: (Reiterated here as a resource for “what to do” specifically)
F. CHECKing Progress and Outcome
- Purpose: To evaluate what worked and what didn’t, and assess progress towards the goal of the current cycle.
- Tools: Specific to business/industry; can include Dashboard tools (e.g., Zoho Analytics), TrendBoard, and ChangeBoard for historical data analysis, predictive “what if” scenarios (e.g., impact of price change on profit).
- Monitoring: Regular monitoring of trends (monthly, quarterly, annually) to identify issues early and initiate corrective Sprints or GamePlans.
G. ADAPT: Review and Consolidate Progress
- Purpose: The concluding task of each Sprint and GamePlan.
- Key Actions:
- 1. Learning & Next Steps: Reflect on lessons learned to inform future Sprints/GamePlans, continuously “adapting” to unfolding events.
- 2. Consolidate Progress: Incorporate successful new methods into Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to “ratchet” forward and prevent backsliding. Failure to update SOPs negates sprint benefits.
- Review Frequency: End of each Sprint and in the last couple of weeks of the quarterly GamePlan.
- Flexibility: GamePlans are fluid; adapt or change them if priorities shift or they aren’t achieving desired results, but reflect on why to improve future prioritization.
H. The Importance of Routine
- Habit Formation: GamePlanning must become a routine/habit to avoid postponement.
- Dedicated Time: Allocate specific times for decision-making steps.
- Next GamePlan Setup: Begin setting up the next GamePlan in the last 2 weeks of the current one, based on current outcomes and shifting priorities.
- Next Sprint Review: Weekly review (e.g., Monday morning) to plan sprint tasks, prioritizing them and working through them. Allocate time at week’s end for reflection and potential adjustments/pivots.
I. Team Involvement
- Benefits: Staff at the “coalface” offer valuable insights and ideas, leading to the “network effect” of increased opportunities. Promotes shared ownership and celebration of results.
- Coordination: Tools like Mission Control can help coordinate team efforts.
- KPI/OKR Alignment: Tune staff KPIs and OKRs to GamePlan goals to motivate and assess performance, making it a “team sport.”
- Confidentiality: 3-Year Destination may not be fully shared with staff due to career implications, but external mentors/professionals can be consulted.
3. Glossary of Key Terms
- 12Faces GamePlans: Custom-built planning strategy for small business owners that takes into account their realities when navigating business direction.
- 3 Year Destination: The business owner’s crystal-clear vision of what “success” will look like for their business in three years; acts as the “north star” for all decisions.
- Adapt: The final stage of the PDCA Cycle, involving reviewing what was learned, deciding next steps, and consolidating successful new methods into Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
- Candidate GamePlans: A list of potential improvement areas or problems that a business owner wants to resolve, from which the next Quarterly GamePlan is selected.
- Check: The third stage of the PDCA Cycle, where actual outcomes are measured against expected outcomes set in the Plan stage.
- Constraint: The single most important thing holding a business back from reaching its 3-Year Destination as soon as possible; a mission-critical area for a GamePlan.
- Diagnostic System: A 12Faces resource that functions like a medical diagnosis, identifying potential causes (symptoms) for business problems and suggesting treatment options or solutions.
- Destination: (See 3 Year Destination)
- Do: The second stage of the PDCA Cycle, involving the actual execution of tasks within a plan or sprint.
- GamePlan: A 3-month planning period with a micro goal in mind, designed to make meaningful improvements and align with financial quarters.
- Incremental Improvement (Kaizen): The continuous improvement of products and systems within a business, a type of task to be included in GamePlans.
- Multitasking: The act of attempting several tasks simultaneously, which the GamePlan System advises against for GamePlans to maintain focus.
- PDCA Cycle (Plan Do Check Adapt): A standardized, iterative four-stage management method used for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products.
- Plan: The first stage of the PDCA Cycle, where what to do and who does what is defined, and potential implementation problems are considered in advance.
- Prefab GamePlans: Pre-assembled frameworks or templates for common business solutions, designed to save time on research and planning for a chosen GamePlan.
- Preventative Maintenance: Routine activities or tasks performed on an ongoing basis to prevent business assets or systems from deteriorating (e.g., customer retention, accounting cycles).
- Ratchet Cycle: A concept representing a cycle of events that consistently moves forward and is prevented from moving backward, ensuring reliable and continuous progress.
- Routine: A regular, habitual sequence of actions that is crucial for effective GamePlanning to ensure consistency and prevent procrastination.
- Small Business: The primary target audience for the GamePlan System, typically defined by the number of staff (e.g., 1-19 staff).
- Solopreneur / Start-up: The initial stage of a business where success is primarily defined as survival.
- Sprints: Short, focused work periods, typically 1-2 weeks in duration, used to execute specific tasks within a quarterly GamePlan, allowing for agility and quick adaptation.
- Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Documented, step-by-step instructions that help workers carry out routine operations, updated during the Adapt phase to consolidate improvements.
- Sustainable Business Success: The overarching mission and goal of the 12Faces GamePlan System, aiming for continuous, reliable growth and improvement without risking significant setbacks.
- Work Smarter, not Harder: The core mantra behind the GamePlan System, emphasizing efficiency, focused effort, and systematic approaches over simply increasing effort.
Q&A on GamePlan Method
Questions
- Why does the GamePlan System advocate dumping unworkable 5-year formal business plans for small businesses?
- What is the significance of clarifying your “3 Year Destination” in the GamePlan System, and how does it prevent “chasing the next bright shiny object”?
- Explain why the GamePlan System divides planning into quarterly “GamePlans” rather than focusing solely on the 3-year destination.
- Describe the “Ratchet Cycle” as it applies to the GamePlan System and its mission for sustainable business success.
- What are the four stages of the Plan Do Check Adapt (PDCA) Cycle, and how does this cycle embody the “Work Smarter, not Harder” mantra?
- How does the GamePlan System suggest business owners manage the workload within a quarterly GamePlan, particularly concerning the timeframe?
- Provide two examples of the types of tasks that can be included in a GamePlan, according to the prioritization criteria.
- What is the purpose of “Sprints” in the GamePlan System, and why are they typically 1-2 weeks long?
- Explain how the “Diagnostic System” helps business owners determine “what to do” in their Sprints.
- What are the two main aspects of the “ADAPT” phase in the PDCA Cycle, and why is consolidating progress critical?
Answer Key
- The GamePlan System recognizes that small business owners often struggle to predict beyond 3-6 months, making a 5-year plan largely guesswork and unlikely to be achieved. It proposes an alternative planning process based on real-world experience, suitable for dynamic small business environments.
- Clarifying the 3-Year Destination provides a “north star” or crystal-clear vision of success, preventing business owners from aimlessly pursuing various ideas. It ensures all decisions are aligned with a desired future state, providing a clear target to aim for.
- The system uses quarterly GamePlans because remaining focused on a 3-year target is difficult. Quarterly plans offer a more achievable timeframe, align with financial accounting cycles, and provide more frequent senses of achievement, allowing for four meaningful improvements annually.
- The “Ratchet Cycle” represents a continuous process of moving forward without falling backward, aiming for reliable, sustainable progress. It signifies developing a routine and consistently following it to minimize mis-steps and ensure steady advancement towards the next “Success” Destination.
- The PDCA Cycle comprises Plan (consider problems, define what to do), Do (execute tasks), Check (measure outcomes against expectations), and Adapt (decide next steps, integrate learnings). It embodies “Work Smarter, not Harder” by ensuring forethought, evaluation, and continuous improvement, preventing wasted effort.
- The GamePlan System suggests managing the workload by breaking the 90-day GamePlan into shorter, 1-2 week “Sprints.” This agile approach makes it easier to choose “what’s next,” adapt to new priorities, and avoids setting rigid long-term tasks that might become irrelevant.
- Two examples of task types include addressing a “Constraint,” which is the single most important thing holding the business back from its Destination, and “Incremental Improvement” (Kaizen), which involves continuously improving main products and systems. Preventative Maintenance is another valid example.
- Sprints are short, focused work periods (typically 1-2 weeks) designed to execute tasks within a GamePlan. They are used because a 90-day plan is too long for detailed foresight, allowing for flexibility, quick pivots, and a regular sense of achievement.
- The Diagnostic System functions like a doctor, taking business “symptoms” (e.g., dropping profit) and suggesting underlying causes and potential “treatments” or solutions. This helps business owners identify specific actions and alternative approaches to remedy issues in their Sprints.
- The “ADAPT” phase involves two main aspects: learning from the Sprint/GamePlan to inform the next steps, and consolidating progress by integrating successful new methods into Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Consolidating progress is critical because it “ratchets” the business forward, cementing improvements and reducing the risk of backsliding.
Other 12Faces Resources