Be Different or be dead

April 21, 2011

Why a business plan for 24-months makes the best sense

Source: Unsplash

Why a business plan for 24-months makes the best sense.

The 5-year business plan has serious flaws.

The outlying years 3, 4 and 5 can’t be predicted with any degree of accuracy and they never show up (anyone ever see year 5 materialize?)

More importantly, fussing about these later years keeps you from executing today.

So what’s the appropriate planning period?

In principle it should represent a slice of time that you believe will have a high degree of continuity. A period of time where the degree of uncertainty Is relatively low.

It’s a crap shoot no matter how you look at it.

I always had success using a 24-month plan and differentiating it from a 2-year plan. Thinking of the business plan in months keeps execution in your sights.

It also keeps you from being too locked in to a specific course of action regardless of the results you achieve and how much you learn through implementing your strategy.

My formula: create a 24-month business plan.

Focus on execution. Learn from how well you execute

Be alert to the unforeseen. Adjust on the run.

Cheers,
Roy
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• Posted 4.21.11 at 10:00 am by Roy Osing
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