Be Different or be dead

April 14, 2011

Why 5-year business plans should make you sick and tired

Source: Unsplash

Why 5-year business plans should make you sick and tired.

Why do organizations still produce a 5 year business plan?

Have you ever seen the 5th year of a 5-year business plan year show up? I haven’t. Next year it becomes the 4th year; following that the 3rd year. And so it goes.

Yet it amazes me how much time and energy people put into trying to make the 5th year (and the 3rd and 4th for that matter) as “accurate”  as they can.

People seem to want to wring out the last 10% of perfection in the latter plan years; it seems to be the guiding principle.

Doesn’t this strike you as a bit dysfunctional? A waste of the most precious commodity we have - time? Who the hell knows what year 5 will look like?

All we really know is that it will be different from what we think it will be from today’s vantage point. So why try to plan with precision in year 5?

Spending a whole lot of time trying to determine with any degree of accuracy what years 4 and 5 look like in any business plan is a waste of time and it keeps you from getting stuff done; from executing NOW!

If you must feed the animals who lust after a five year wild ass guess (because that’s what it is), at least minimize how much time you spend on the outlying years.

Five minutes ought to do it.

Want to invest your time wisely? Reduce your business plan to 24 months and get on with executing.

Cheers,
Roy
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• Posted 4.14.11 at 10:00 am by Roy Osing
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