Why this is important

Making sure your plans for your business are carried out properly is a valuable thing to do to make sure that your business actually goes in the direction you want it to.

Who might do this

You might do this if you are running:

• your own business;
• a franchise or format business; or
• a social enterprise.

What it involves

Carrying out your plans for your business involves:

• deciding how to judge success;
• deciding who does what and when;
• thinking about possible problems;
• monitoring and controlling progress; and
• evaluating your plans to make sure they achieved what you wanted them to.

Other units that link closely with this

Links to other standards

If your business grows and develops a management team it may be appropriate to consider the following units from the Management and Leadership Standards.

1. Decide what needs to be done, and when, to put your plans into practice.
2. Decide what you need to carry out your plans, and how you will get it.
3. Make sure the results of your plans will not harm your business.
4. Think about any problems that might prevent the results of your plans being achieved and identify ways to deal with them.
5. Decide when and how you will monitor progress against your plans and regularly check progress.
6. Make sure that everybody concerned with your business knows about your plans and will help to make them successful.
7. Make sure resources are being used efficiently and in the best possible way.
8. Regularly check with the people who are involved with putting your plans into practice to see what they think about progress.
9. Identify problems with putting your plans into practice, and take prompt action to solve them and to change them, if necessary.
10. Check what resources are still available if plans do not proceed the way you expect them to.
11. Identify any new opportunities that emerge, and make any changes that are needed to your plans.
12. Assess the costs, benefits and success of plans in a fair and accurate way.
13. Decide which resources were of the most use in meeting the aims and targets set.
14. Review your long-term plans for your business using the information you have gathered.

Planning

1. How to break down large targets into activities with timescales and deadlines that can be achieved and measured.
2. What problems could prevent your plans being achieved (for example, changes in the market, competition, lack of resources, staff changes or changes to laws or non-statutory regulations).
3. How to plan ways of avoiding any uncertainties (contingency planning).

Resources

4. What resources are needed to carry out your plans, how you will get them and how much they will cost (for example, products, staff, finance, premises, plant, equipment, marketing and administration).

Motivating others

5. Who should be involved in putting your plans into practice, and how and why they should be consulted.
6. How to communicate with everybody involved in your business about your plans and how to motivate people and encourage them to put your plans into practice.

Monitoring

7. How to set deadlines for achieving goals and targets, chasing and reviewing progress.
8. What monitoring arrangements are suitable (for example, why, when, how and how often) and who to involve.
9. How and when to review the resources used for your plans and how to assess their effectiveness.
10. How to make fair and accurate assessments by using other people’s views and balancing them with your own, as well as gathering other information about your business.
11. How you will judge the costs, benefits and success of your plans.

Business focus

12. How to identify new opportunities and what they are likely to involve (for example, new markets, products or services, changes in competitors’ activities, local or government issues).