Get Ready to Crush the Next Financial Year with These 10 Planning Questions

We are a few months out from the end of your financial year so it is time to consider what your priorities are for the next 12 months, to ensure they are as successful as they can be.

Now before we get into it, this is not intended to be a guide to develop a growth strategy. It's a short guide to help you figure out your priorities for execution for the next 12 months.

If you'd like a checklist to build a better growth strategy (and optimise your business model whilst you're at it), then I've written a FREE guide for you here, it's called the Kick-Arse Growth Strategy Checklist.

But the reality is... in the absence of a sound growth strategy you'll be executing some kind of plan over the next 12 months so why not make sure it's the most effective period possible by asking yourself the right questions upfront?

Getting your mindset in check.

What got you to here, won't necessarily get you to there.

You need to take time out annually to pause, reflect, adapt, and then plan forwards. Why? Because what got you to here and succeeded in the past may not be the things you need to get you to your next milestone. Start with this principle in mind.

You don't have to be the oracle.

You need a vast range of inputs to make good decisions about what to prioritise. Input from reflecting on your business performance, input from your team, from your customers, from a scan of the market (including offshore markets you may not operate in). It's synthesising these inputs into your plan that is the art. You don't need to have all the answers.. you need to be good at gathering the inputs, and asking the right questions.

So what are the questions?

Gathering Learnings from the Past

First off, you need to reflect on the last year. You shouldn't mindlessly keep rolling forward without considering what's worked, what hasn't and what you should have done if you could do it again.

Ask yourself these 4 questions as you reflect on the last 12 months of performance:

1. How have we performed?

How well did we do operationally and financially over the period, against our plan? Did we hit the targets we set last year, did we blast through them, or fall short? Where specifically did we miss or nail our targets and what do we need to learn from that?

2. What's worked?

What activities brought success last year? Find what parts you should keep doing, and perhaps even amplify.

3. What's not worked?

Which parts didn't work as expected? Are there any that we should stop doing immediately? Or any that need modifying where we fell short. You don't want to continue wasting resources on things that are not working.

4. What should we have done with the benefit of hindsight?

If we could rewind time, back to the start of last year, what should we have started doing earlier? See if there is anything you can take into this year to avoid making the same mistakes. 

Reflect on What's Happening, Right Now

We've now got the key learnings from the past.. now it's time to get present! What is happening right now with your team, your customers and your market?

5. What problems are our customers telling us about?

What are our customers telling us? Is there a way to deepen your relationship with them? Solve more problems for them? You need to know about the problems on their "whiteboard", and what's changing in their industries. You need to make sure your solutions address their biggest problems, that is where your income comes from... so always start with your customers.

6. What's happening overseas?

What's happening overseas in your industry right now? This is a great way to identify things that could become a trend in your market before others realise it. Expand your field of vision outside of your local market and see what's happening from a global context in your industry.

7. What are our people telling us we should prioritise?

What are your people telling you that should be a priority for your business? In order to support them to succeed you need to have this input. Get a detailed employee engagement survey done, and use the feedback to help you with your execution priorities. You only succeed when your people succeed.

8. What has changed internally in our business?

What has changed in your business internally? This could be capabilities, people, systems, constraints, influencing factors, or something else. But you need to be aware of how your business has changed, so you know what you're capable of achieving next year. Your internal capabilities place boundaries around what's possible to achieve next year.

Re-consider the Future

Now is your time to think about the future.

9. What disruptive forces are happening, or coming?

What are you seeing in the distance as new potential trends or disruptive factors that you should consider? Perhaps there's forces at play you can see the emergence of that suggest you need to get closer to them, understand them so you can take advantage of them OR protect yourself against them. Some could be tailwinds, others could be headwinds.

10. Where do we want to be 3 years from now?

Where do you want to be three years from now? What space do you want to move towards owning that you think you can be uniquely great at? This is not a strategy planning session - it's an execution planning session, but you still need to be looking into the future to ensure that your execution priorities are leading you towards owning some white space in the medium-term in your industry.

Final Questions

Now that you are armed with the inputs you need to inform decisions around your priorities for the next 12 months, it's time to draft your high level plan by answering these two questions:

• What do we want to achieve over the next 12 months? I'd encourage you to break these down into objectives (broader goals) and key results (key deliverables aligned with each of those objectives)

• Who's going to be accountable as the driving and reporting force to achieve each of those deliverables? No accountability for driving? No momentum.

I hope that's helpful as a little injection to help you optimise your planning process this year.

What are your favourite questions?

I'd love to hear what your favourite questions are when you're doing your annual execution planning... drop them in the comments below and let me know!

Building the best possible plan

If you'd like to work with an experienced CEO who's scaled multiple businesses and be supported by a peer group as you build a kick-arse 3-year growth strategy, as well as your execution plan for the next 12 months - you should be joining us at the next ScaleUps Roadmap course.