Reflection to Action: A Framework for Annual Planning
Around this time of year I find myself needing more and more time to reflect on myself, my role and my businesses (For those of you who don’t know, I own two businesses, The Lev Co which is a design firm and of course Pomelo). I say I’ve needed more and more time because the first decade of my professional career I was so focused on doing a good job, keeping my head above water and learning my craft that I forgot to take the long view and plan well. Now, as a business owner, I recognize the necessity and value of taking time to reflect on my businesses every few months. One, it creates an opportunity to be thankful and grateful for the work that has transpired over the last 12 months but also it gives an opportunity to think critically about the opportunities that were missed. It’s around October and November that I start this process and it really doesn’t fully conclude until about mid to late January.
My own process as it relates to this is ever changing but as it stands currently it looks something like this. Reflection > analysis > critique > ideation > planning > dreaming > action. I look at each of these elements as ingredients in the planning cake that is the next 12 months. Seems pretty simple as we look at it here but it truly takes about a full quarter to thoroughly sift through the good, the bad and the ugly of the last 12 months.
Once I’ve gone through this process I move on to the adjustments and strategy for the next year. But now to the mechanics of actually planninging the year.
Annual Movements
One of the ways that we think about this at The Lev Co, is to think of a client's year in what we call Movements. This goes back to my time planning large scale events for thousands of people when I was a pastor. Whenever planning any event, it was important to determine what the key movements were to then build out the remaining time in between each of the key movements. We’ve found that planning a businesses’ year in this manner forces the business to decide early what they're going to invest in and causes the business to limit what things they say yes to.
For us at The Lev Co & Pomelo, our key movements throughout the year are,
SCA Expo
Green Coffee Auction Season
Internal Strategic Projects
We limit ourselves to 4 to keep us from putting too much on our plates. When you consider what your businesses' key movements are, you’ll need to determine just how many movements you can handle in a year but typically we recommend between 2-4. Within each of these movements, there will be some downtime for one off projects that come up but the key with taking on anything in between these movements is that you have to determine what your main focus is on these predetermined movements and nothing can hinder these movements. So the big question for you is, what are the key movements in your business year?
What’s The Focus This Year?
Last year about this time, I was feeling that we had all the makings of a great team but we needed more internal processes and structure to be able to take on more clients and handle bigger projects. So in our 2024 internal summit, we determined the areas that needed the most structure and processes and set out to build them. As 2024 winds down, we have developed a structure for onboarding new clients, organizing files, hosting meetings and clarified the length of most of our projects. We’ve still got a ways to go but we’re sitting in a much better place because we have one singular focus for the business in 2024. I bet you want to know what our focus will be for 2025? You’re just going to have to wait till next year for me to share that one.
Conversely to a singular focus, it’s also important to determine if there are things you should stop doing in the business. Too often we busy ourselves and our teams with things that may have added value to us at one time or another but no longer add value. The rhythms of same old same old get comfortable and we often don’t take the time necessary to reevaluate what we are doing as critically as we take other decisions. So here's the question, is there something that you’ve been doing all year, or perhaps longer, that no longer serves you, the business or your team well?
Capex Investments
When considering the next 12 months ahead, another thing to consider are what are the big CapEx (Capital Expenditures) investments that you’ll need to make in your business and how much money will that take to make said investments? Once you have answers to the previous questions you can then map out how you will fund these capex projects and that will help to outline a realistic timeline. This funding timeline will help to map out your year with specific targets, mile markers and triggers to help you get to where you’re trying to go this year.
Learning
As owners, we’re always learning. It’s part of the job description whether we like it or not and there are certain things that we know instinctively that we need to learn in order to lead, grow, and get to where we want to go as a person and leader. So what do you need to learn this year? Is it something that you can learn by reading a few books or do you need to allocate time to take a class or two? Once you clarify what you need to learn, it will help to aid in planning out how much of your time and year needs to be devoted to learning.
Conclusion
Our brains can only hold so much information and often we try to jam too much into them to the point that we unintentionally overwhelm ourselves. Try narrowing down your annual planning to just these four things: (1) the annual movements, (2) a primary focus, (3) your capital investments and (4) the things you need to learn. If you can narrow it down to these four things, it will make planning your year strategic, manageable and something that you can wrap your head around.