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Subject:re business plans From:Irene Wong <wongword -at- OZEMAIL -dot- COM -dot- AU> Date:Tue, 9 Mar 1999 19:15:55 +1000
Debra
Make sure that what you write reflects the whole mission of your
company. Your
plan must say that you support the software and its users/customers. Use
the
words of the main aims of the organisation, as used in the business
plan.
This means that you really need to know what the overall plan is before
you
can write yours. You are not an isolated part with your own little
agenda. You
exist to support the overall company's agenda.
You might be secretly aiming to build your own empire, expand your
responsibilities, staff numbers etc etc. That's fine.
However, this mustn't be obvious in your plan. In the plan you must look
like
an absolutely essential and commonsense/logical part of the whole
company/product. You must appear as essential as the packaging
department/whatever.
You need to think carefully about this because mgt may use the plan for
resource and funding. therefore you need to think about where your unit
wants
to be in 12 months. the plan might also include:
What can you do to further the aims of the company/customers?
How will you achieve that?
How will you know when you have achieved it?
What are the key results you are looking for this year? Where will you
be in
two years time? What do you need to get there?
What are the environmental factors and/or key external risks which are
likely
to affect your unit? What effect will they have on workloads? Is there
likely
to be a "crunch"?
What are you already committed to?
If you feel confident enough, offer to prepare a template for the
business
plan for other people to fill in about their departments. Get yourself
in as
an essential part of the business planning process itself. It seems to
me that
your company hasn't given people much clue about this and everyone will
include something different. How about suggesting a common approach
asking all
depts for similar responses.
