Once you decide that what you need is a business plan to deal with today’s challenges and provide a look ahead to the future, the first step is to put together a Plan to Plan Then, the plan needs to be implemented. Some family members may be deeply concerned about the current economy, their continued employment with the company and/or even the continued viability of the business. Profits have shrunk, new business is extremely difficult to obtain, the banks are tougher to deal with and the company budget has imploded. Reserves are being used.

It is critical to understand that strategic planning is not an event, but a process. There are steps to follow, with the first being the development of a Plan to Plan. First generate summary data, which can include a comparison of key financial information over three years, current financial status compared to the past three years, current cost of operation compared to the past three years and significant gains and losses of business during the same period.

You should include pertinent items from your operating dashboard, as well. If  you doin’t have a dashboard this would be an excellent time to create one. Identitfy the 5 most important measures for your business and begin to track those, it may include items such as cash on hand, accounts receivable aged, number of employees per dollars of revenue and/or profit, inventory levels, accounts payable or whatever else gives yu the best feel of your business. Work with the 5 items you view as most important.

Where do you begin? The first step is to develop an agreed Plan to Plan. A face-to-face session may not always be practical, so the Plan to Plan can be accomplished by using e-mail, conference call or Internet conference, such as GoToMeeting or Skype.

The Plan to Plan document records your planning process, one that is focused on your critical problems and offers a design to address the situation.

Prepare a short summary outlining the problems. The summary also can contain information on the continued utility and profitability of the various products and services the company offers.

The First Session
Initiating the planning activity with a conference call or Internet conference is usually the quickest way to start. Key family members should develop, critique, modify and support a set of goals for the conference. The critical goals of the conference call could include:

1. Affirmation of the continued relevance of the purpose of the business
2. Agreement on time for a face-to-face session to work through a review of the existing plan and situation, or build the new organization plan
3. Agreement on which goals and objectives most need to be achieved to ensure the continued viability of the business during the next short term (12-18 months) and long term (18-36 months)
4. Steps that must be taken to accomplish the objectives
5. Achieve meaningful dialogue among the family and other key business leaders to have all recognize the urgency of quickly moving forward to complete and implement the plan

Keep It Organized and Concise – The 7 Steps

1. Make sure that each participant in the conference has the benefit of receiving the conference goals beforehand, with adequate time for them to review and digest the materials. The leadership may be in agreement, but each person processes information differently, so participants may benefit from formulating their views prior to coming together.
2. Ideally, the conference should be followed by the circulation of minutes of the session to all participants.
3. Seven to 10 conference participants work well and allow everyone to contribute
4. Don’t clutter the call with housekeeping affairs. Keep in mind that this is a critical first step for the future health and success and of your business.
5. Stick to the agenda. Plan the call so that it can be completed in 60-90 minutes.
6. Record the call and discussions, conclusions reached, next steps and date time and place for a working session.
7. Circulate the call minutes as quickly as possible. If the minutes are taken on a computer, they should be able to be circulated in just a few days. The speed of circulation tends to reinforce the urgency of the situation.
   You are now ready to build your Plan.

Building the Plan
There is more than one way to devise a plan for an organization. Here is one sequence that leads to success:

1. Develop a planning calendar
2. Assign responsibility for next steps for members of the planning group
3. Post session audits of critical areas
4. Audit results evaluated by the planning task group
5. Input gathered from family and management
6. Planning workshop session to discuss audits and input and reach agreement
7. Plan document development

The goal is to develop both a short-term (12 month) and long-term (three years) rolling plan. Each year, going forward, a year is evaluated and dropped and a year is added to the plan.

In future columns we’ll address the 7 Truths of Strategic Planning and A Year in the Life of a Plan.