The “One Page Strategic Plan”
The wait is over! With this post, I’ll provide you with an excellent tool for not only documenting your start-up strategy, but managing the growth of your business. While this tool was presented to me during a NBIA (National Business Incubation Association) conference, I do believe it is applicable beyond the confines of early stage start-up. However, I do think it has it’s limits as as your business grows, you will eventually outgrown it as well.
Before we get to discussing the tool, I have to give credit to the two sources that made this possible.
My Conference Presenter
First, a big thanks to Karl R. LaPan, President and CEO of the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center, Inc. Karl ran the session at the conference that included the overview of the One Page Strategic Plan (OPSP). Karl was engaging, well-spoken, knowledgeable and easily one of the best presenters I encountered in the conference. His 55 acre Innovation Center is truly a world-class facility. If you are a technology entrepreneur in Northeast Indiana, or know one, make sure you check out Karl’s services and programs. It is with Karl’s permission that I present the OPSP here.
Foundational Inspiration
The OPSP was adapted and modified based on the book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm
- Priorities: A few rules remain consistent with a firm’s core values and long-term goal. Others change regularly — what Harnish calls the Top 5 and Top 1 of 5.
- Data: Key metrics should be measured over time (Smart Numbers); short-term metrics provide a tighter focus on an aspect of the business (Critical Numbers).
- Rhythm: A well-organized set of meetings keep everyone aligned and accountable.
So, let’s take a look
The first thing you notice about the OPSP is yes, it’s on one page – but it can be a pretty big page! As presented at the conference, it was printed on legal size. Still not too bad for an overall strategic plan for your business. The second thing you may notice is for one page, there is a lot of information. For me, this was probably the single drawback of the OPSP. It wasn’t so much that the amount of information was overwhelming, just that creating all of it might not be appropriate for all entrepreneurs. Much of the information on the top and bottom falls into that area of “mission/vision/objectives/goals” that consultants seem to love, but you and I sometimes have a problem drawing distinctions between. I think this is the one area of the OPSP where you can use your best judgment as to whether all of these sections are required for where you are in your business cycle. That really is my only “complaint” however. The OPSP clearly is well designed and offers tremendous value in a small footprint.
Let’s take a tour.
The foundation
The OPSP’s “Steps to Success” really lay the foundation for the entire framework of the plan, forcing you through a strategic planning process from the highest level (your core values and culture) to the lowest level (daily work tasks). These steps to success break down into three types of planning:
The “Forever” and “Leader Life” steps focus you on very strategic issues related to your personal values, passion, and purpose. Documenting these aspects of yourself in relation to your business will help guide all other aspects of strategic planning and will be a bedrock you can come back to whenever difficult decisions arise in your business.
“Mission Milestones” and “Annual Goals” fall under the traditional short-term and long-term planning heading. “Big Actions”, “Schedule” and “Work” relate more to day-to-day and ongoing tasks and projects.
Next, let’s talk about all that “consultant” language.
Sprinkled across the top and bottom of the OPSP, you’ll find:
- Strategy theme
- Opportunities to exceed plan
- Threats to achieve plan
- Quality statement
- Mission
- Vision
- Passion
- Strategy “Dream Statement” and BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)
No one can argue that having a basic strategy statement, along with an understanding of opportunities and threats, are essential components of any strategic plan. I’m not arguing against the rest, but whether you need a strategy theme and a mission and a vision and a passion and … Well, you get my point. Think through each of these elements and intelligently decide whether they are essential for your planning given the stage you are at. The Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
From Vision to Activity
The heart of the plan, represented by columns taking up the majority of the real estate on the page, document the OPSP from the highest level down to the lowest level, from left to right. From left to right, these columns are:
- Core Values & Culture (Foundation – Who We Are)
- Purpose & Passion (Why We Exist)
- Mission Milestones (Where We Are Headed)
- Annual Goals (What We Do To Get There)
- Big Actions (How We Do It)
- Schedule (When Does It Get Done)
- Work / Responsibility (Who Is Accountable)
There you go. In just seven short columns, the OPSP takes you from your Core Values & Culture down to what needs to get done and who needs to do it to reach your goals. Actually, the real genius of the OPSP process is forcing you through two complementary processes:
- First, as discussed, the Core Values into work schedule process, and
- Critical thinking around severely limiting the number of goals and actions in the plan.
Monitoring the Plan
The last few sections of the OPSP document your 3-5 year targets, your annual targets, your smart number and non-financial smart numbers. These short lists of targets, help keep you focused on monitoring a small set of metrics to help you quickly evaluate where you stand in relation to goal.
So, what’s it all look like?
It’s going to be hard to put a good image representation inline here given the size of the OPSP and the amount of information that is on the page. You can get an overview of what it looks like with the image I’ve included here. I’ve linked the image to a PDF version of the OPSP. Click on the image and you can open the document in your PDF viewer.
Feel free to print and use the OPSP in your company or start-up’s strategic planning. I’d love to hear feedback on any of you that use the form and what your experience was with it. For the best understanding of how the OPSP works, you can check out Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
I also have an EPS version of the plan that is around 3M in size. If you would like that version, please E-Mail me via my Contact page and I will send it to you.
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Dave
thanks for posting this – worth waiting for! It’s my weekend reading,and I’ll feedback what we do with it.
Adam