Saturday 27 September 2014

Agile strategic planning - from here to there!

Following publication of my first 'monograph' I am in the process of applying the ideas to business development. Just in case you missed it http://www.amazon.co.uk/AGILE-random-walks-Random-walk-ebook/dp/B00NF5J4C2

Most business planning goes like this;

1 vision
2 strategy
3 business plan
4 target areas
5 action plan

or there and thereabouts.

Reality: 
By the time you have worked through the vision and strategy (probably for the umpteenth time) everyone has lost interest and gone back to the day job. The business plan gets rammed home as you have to put together the budget for next year, targets are 'set' then the monster tracking spreadsheet (ouch - you know how much I like these things) is created with great precision to beat you up each month for doing 'plan says' stuff.

Plan not working warning, warning!

Alternative approach needed:
Rapidly changing environments around client businesses means your planning needs to be 'agile' to keep up with the times. What used to 'work' on a planning time-base of a year may now be too slow and rigid. Especially so if you actually want to present your company as being ahead of the drag curve in its products and services!

You still need a vision but how can you build a strategy that still delivers year on year, accounts for your current business capabilities and keeps pace with current trends. More of a prophet than a profit warning.

Currently working up the initial viewpoint .....


Tuesday 9 September 2014

First attempt at publishing - gone live.

Well I just did it - self published an e-book that is!

It is based on some of the 'agile' practices presented here in this blog over the past couple of years. Its more of a pamphlet than a book (30 pages) and I tried to make it free but failed and ended up setting it to the lowest price selectable!

Here is the link to the Amazon Kindle site:

http://www.amazon.com/AGILE-random-walks-Random-walk-ebook/dp/B00NF5J4C2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1410252698&sr=8-2&keywords=agile+random

The plan is to make it part of a series of 'random walks'. I hope it proves useful if you do end up reading it - don't forget I am a recovering dyslexic and part time computer nerd so writing is not my first language - hence the AGILE! ;)

Will keep you posted here on the next walk!