Project Planning v Annual Business Planning
Make sure you do a good job of project planning - how can you argue against that? Absolutely - don’t go into major infrastructure or service changes without a plan that will contain risks and guide you to a successful conclusion. OK.
But annual business planning? The text books will tell you this is important and valuable too. But my experience in this millennium is far from consistent with that view. At Pink we start our annual business planning in earnest in early September and usually have most important decisions and a budget wrapped up by late November. Of course, come January the real work starts as we then manage the business with the annual business plan front and centre as a reference. Sounds straight-forward, eh? Let’s look at the reality ...
In 2001 we showed up one Tuesday morning to have our first group management meeting on business planning for 2002. After about 30-40 minutes we broke up the meeting and spent the next couple of hours watching TV. Oh, I forgot to mention - that was Tuesday September 11, 2001. The next few weeks and months we had no idea what to expect in 2002. All we could do was focus on what we could control (the Strengths & Weaknesses of the SWOT), but we had no idea what the world was going to be doing around us. What we did see quite quickly was that no one was keen to travel to public classes. And some competitors in our industry either went to the wall or booked heavy losses.
Things were relatively predictable and manageable in the 4 years following 2004. But then in 2006 we started our annual business planning around the same time of year again, and in the back of our minds was the fact that we were in the middle of a major re-write of ITIL. Little did we know what to expect closer to the launch date. But we were going to find out, rather inconveniently, right after we finished our annual business planning. In January 2007 we started to hear whispers about a new ITIL certification scheme, and it was going to be launched at the same time as the new books - in June. Thanks for the heads-up, you guys! We were well into the new year before realizing (being told, actually) that we had to re-develop most of our education portfolio, and start launching it at the end of Q2! Just in case you’re not following me here - 2007 was a bit of a dog’s breakfast compared to what we had planned.
Then, within a few months of the launch of ITIL V3 we started our planning for the following year. Problem was, we were now in the middle of “The Great ITIL V2-V3 Transition Scare of 2007”. Trying to predict levels of business for new products that The Powers That Be hadn’t even fully defined yet was “think of a number time”. We’d have done just as well with a dart board or even a stray dog barking out numbers. Funny? No.
Fast forward to September last year and we started planning for 2009. The economy is in meltdown and .... well you know the rest.
What’s the point!!
Of course annual business planning involves not just making decisions about what you want to do - things within your control. But also trying your best to be ready to navigate around the outside forces - which are beyond your control. In the years I’ve mentioned it’s clear that outside forces enjoyed a disproportionate amount of our attention. That was 4 out of the last 8 years we were thrown serious curve balls. A ratio like I’ve never seen over my 30 years in the business.
So here’s my plea to that Great Program Manager in the Sky. For 2010, please, please, give us a break!
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Great post, I loved it!
A lady on the Karakoram Highway (read my book Working in IT) taught me: if you sort out your priorities in order - no equals - then all decisions are easy. It is really hard to do but you do it once (and update it periodically). The business version of that idea is that strategy can be clear even when plans and execution aren’t. That’s the being ready you refer to eh?
Posted by The IT Skeptic on 11/05 at 02:24 PM -
Your story could be my life the last 8 years. Sometimes I’m reminded of that line in the movie Airplane, that gets progressively worse.
Looks like I picked the wrong decade to quit smoking.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to start a company.
...
and so forth.But here we are!
Posted by Rodrigo Flores on 11/05 at 06:45 PM