Step by step guide to planning
Strategic business planning can be a simple, uncomplicated process if you take it step by step. Here is a guide to help you develop a business plan.
- Set up planning structure
- Establish current status and broad strategy
- Map what to include
- Write the plan
- Implement, monitor and review
Step 1: Set up planning structure
- Form a planning committee.
- Schedule meetings separate to board meetings.
- Identify key people who should be involved in your planning process – board directors, management, sponsors.
- If possible appoint an experienced external facilitator – someone who isn’t involved in the organisation – to drive the planning process.
Establish best practice from the start – use the planning checklist as a guide.
Step 2: . Establish current status and broad strategy
- Consult with your club or association’s state sporting body for information about regional and national plans and other relevant information.
- Review club or association’s past outcomes and present position, including club or association mission statement and corporate values. Your mission is what your club or association wants to achieve in the larger environment.
- Find out trends within the sport industry. For example there may be an increase or decrease in participation, access to funds, alliances with other club or associations etc.
- Find out trends within your club or association. For example there could be an increase in females aged 18 – 25 participating at your club or association.
- Understand where you club is placed within the operating environment by undertaking a SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
- Establish realistic and timely performance indicators. For example: a club or association plans to conduct 20 coaching courses in one year.
- Draft action plans, assign responsibilities to key people.
- Analyse current financial status including forecast balance sheet, cash flow and profit and loss statement.
For help with your planning activities, use our planning activities guide which includes a SWOT analysis.
Step 3: Map what to include
You will now have enough information to incorporate into a formal business plan. To help you work out the layout and structure, download our content inclusions guide.
Step 4: Write the plan
Once you have established the plan’s sections and structure, you are ready to write the business plan.
If you need assistance, customise our sample plan to suit the needs of your club or association, including:
- Key Performance Areas (KPAs)
- Sample SWOT analysis
- Implementation plans
- Financial explanations with sample cash flow forecast and budget forecast.
Step 5: Implement, monitor and review
A business plan creates the structure for you to put in place strategies and objectives identified in the plan.
To make the whole planning process a valuable and worthwhile activity for your club, you need to:
- Assign responsibilities for implementation of strategies
- Create realistic timelines for implementation of action plans
- Evaluate and update entire plan at least annually, ideally before budget planning.
- Regularly evaluate your plan:
- Targets should be evaluated quarterly
- Financial plans should be evaluated monthly
- Action plans should be evaluated monthly, weekly and daily.