8 Steps to a beautiful annual operating plan

With a complete set of templates covering the planning process, facilitation, budget summary and operating plan.

Friday, July 9th 2021, 12:12PM

Brett Herkt - Founder & CEO @ BoardPro

An annual operating plan is a prized document – it’s the blueprint for building your organisation in any given year. You wouldn’t build a house without architectural drawings.

Unfortunately, many SME CEOs run their organisations with only a sketch of what they are building.

The guide included at the footer of this article is aimed at CEOs of commercial and not-for-profit organisations with revenues between $2M and $40M and a functioning management/leadership team (i.e., 3+ managers) who don’t have a strong track record of strategic/operational planning.

If your organisation is smaller, absorb the principles and scale down the process to suit your resources.

 

ANNUAL BUSINESS PLANNING CAN BE A NIGHTMARE…

Like many CEOs, I have run an annual planning exercise with suboptimal results.

In my early days, it was horrible  – rushed preparation, lack of alignment, personal agendas at the board table, weak commitment, lack of diverse thinking – and I tried to create, run and contribute all at the same time!

The outcome was frustrating and poor.

The good news is that annual planning is a craft which can be mastered.

 

 

Here’s how to run a lower-stress process to produce an annual operating plan that:

 

It includes a set of ‘cheat-sheet templates’ and ‘simple guides’ for managing the process and delivering the outputs. Once completed the management team should have an agreed action programme and results to which it will willingly commit itself.

 

 

After reading the plan, you should know precisely what those involved:

 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE GUIDE

 

 

Tags: Boardpro

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