My Planning Framework that Actually Produces
I hate annual planning. Not because it’s a pain in the neck, but because it’s a total waste of time. That’s coming from someone who spent most of his career building business plans and financial models. There’s a big difference between building a long-range pro forma and a tactical plan.
The primary problem with the way most businesses approach strategy is that it’s usually top down rather than bottom up. They start with the outcome and apply numbers based on what worked before. They benchmark against the market rather than digging deeply into how to stand out. Essentially, most people tear the cover off the pro forma and roll it forward year after year.
As a hotel asset manager, I see this same pattern all the time. The property manager usually does a great job masking it with comprehensive financial analysis and guest feedback, but if you compare budget packages year over year, you’ll notice a lot of sameness.
This process usually generates exceptional ideas from ownership budget presentations that turn into workshops. Most ideas are quickly forgotten, and the year’s creative production is loaded to the end of the year – just before the next review.
While time pressure is a consideration, the annual planning culture is the primary culprit for this failed system. It asks too much of the operations team. Strategy becomes a once-a-year burden rather than an ongoing process of continual enlightenment and optimization.
I prefer to work with tighter feedback loops and ongoing strategy formation. In this model, plans are limited to only the quarter ahead, focusing on only the highest impact objectives. We also start with problems rather than outcomes because by solving the right problems, the best outcomes naturally follow.
12-Week Sprints
At the core of this planning framework is the concept of a 12-week sprint. Each sprint is bookended with a week for retrospective and planning, rounding out the 13-week quarter. This is just enough time to achieve something of significance and not enough time to forget about what you’re striving for.
Great, but what do you put into the sprint?
It all comes down to spotting the right problems to solve. This comes from engaging the team across a wide spectrum of viewpoints. In my personal life, that includes my wife, kids, and close extended family and friends. In work, it’s a multidisciplinary group from around the company.
Start by defining the problem with an open discussion about potential root causes. Once you narrow down and align on the root cause, you can open up again to explore potential solutions. The goal is to establish a clear plan to design a solid solution for the 12 weeks ahead.
What I like about the 12-week sprint is that you can set reasonably achievable goals for each week along the way. It’s not so far out that progress will be cloudy in the outer periods. You only get better at goal setting after a few cycles.
Accountability Partner
The last essential element is accountability. Naturally, you must be accountable to your future self, but it helps to have a partner or two to check you along the way. Brief weekly check-ins with people at your level or a little more advanced is a great way to maintain accountability.
It may also help to send an email to them before the call to ensure weekly progress. Keep it simple:
- What was last week’s goal?
- How close did you get to achieving it?
- What is next week’s goal?
- What obstacles do you need to clear to achieve it?
- What lessons have you learned so far to bring into the next sprint?
Your accountability partner should challenge you to push beyond the reasonable. Great things happen when we consciously push our limits. Sandbagging doesn’t do you any favors.
I hope this helps you rethink annual planning and New Year resolutions. How can you adapt those plans for the next 12 weeks?