The Most Significant Reason Business Plans Fail1 min read

The failure rate in bringing business plans to fruition is very high. Many observers, including me, have found a number of common failure modes. First among all are the shortcomings in the planning and execution processes themselves. The failure to actually put the plan into action

A good planning process engages all of the significant stakeholders in the creation of the plan. This practice is productive because 90% or more of the facts required to create the plan are sitting in the room when all of the stakeholders are there. Creating the plan through a team effort leverages this knowledge, provides opportunities for problems and opportunities to surface and be resolved, and the resulting plan is inherently owned by everyone because they were present and involved in its creation.

A good planning process insists on ruthlessly testing every assumption. It is a common practice to conduct sessions with no holds bared brainstorming and critiques. This is most essential when planning for a transformation strategy for a mature business. Business leaders find it extremely difficult to prune away the past even when it has no future. Past successes seductively appear to forecast future success.

By far the most significant cause of failure for business plans is the inability of the management to translate the plan effectively into day to day work. Most business plans fall far short of the detailed work required to decompose strategies into tactics. No where do the list of tasks, properly sequenced, appear with clear delineation of responsibility, authority, deliverables, budgets and resources and deadlines. And, finally, there is no clear communications and feedback plan so that those in frontline positions know what to do, why, when, and what are the expected results.

More about why business plans fail over the next four postings