This is the second blog in a three-part series on annual business planning. Be sure to read How to Create an Annual Plan in 5 Steps and subscribe to the blog to get more annual planning advice from Kris Snyder.
1. Which comes first: the annual plan or the annual budget?
Some companies start the annual planning process and then do the budgeting. Other companies create the budget first and then the plan. Those are choices that organizations get to make, and there isn't a right or wrong answer.
2. When should you have your Annual Planning Meeting?
Most of the companies I help follow a calendar-based annual planning timeline, so the annual planning season kicks off sometime in October for most people. Some of my other customers have a non-calendar annual planning timeline — maybe because they follow a fiscal year, or they’re in retail and things don’t really close out for them until Q1.
Altogether, the annual planning season will run through October, November, December, and January.
3. How long is an Annual Planning Meeting?
At our business-building software company Ninety, we have three Quarterly Planning Meetings (QPMs) and one Annual Planning Meeting (APM). Quarterly meetings are one day, and the annual meeting is two days. This gives us ample time to align on past accomplishments and future goals.
4. How do I run an Annual Planning Meeting?
Once you’ve planned out your meeting and key discussion points, Ninety’s Meetings tool can help you run through the agenda and the distinct parts of the meeting. You can then go into your vision planner on Ninety to keep track of your 5- to 10-year target and how you’re progressing.
Inside the software, you can not only have the Senior Leadership Team’s vision but you can also have a vision set at the department level. The things that stay consistent across company and department visions are your Core Values and Compelling and Audacious Goals (CAGs).
All goals should be made SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). Inside our software, it’s easy to do that. You can add a detailed description to accompany each recorded goal. You can even add links and attachments. So when you’re setting that goal 12 months out, you’ll have an idea of the things you need to do and the journey you need to take to achieve that goal.
Whenever we do a Quarterly Planning Meeting, we check in on our goals for the year. Sometimes those are just good reminders of things we still need to do, and it’s also a good way to capture the smaller goals that can help us achieve the larger goals for the year.
5. How does a coach help with Annual Planning Meetings?
If you’re working with a coach like me, your coach is committed to helping leadership teams with three quarterly meetings and one annual meeting, including that first day of team health and strategy. For bigger companies consisting of 200+ people, some coaches will also help at a department level.
6. Is the Annual Planning Meeting just for leadership?
Departments also have individual Annual Planning Meetings. Then, they go back to the Senior Leadership Team to talk about what they think they can accomplish and the resources they need to do it.
Additionally, everybody could use a little team health. Everybody could spend a little time on SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis and strategy. It just depends on how much time and capacity we have to undertake that work. An Annual Planning Meeting is a great way to set aside that time.
7. Are there tools and tech to help with Annual Planning Meetings?
So many people have tried to run quarterly and annual meetings without a set of tools like Ninety. The alternative is putting stuff in PowerPoint or on paper, which is very static.
It’s the connectivity of our software that people love. It’s “click, click, done” versus, “I’ve got some stuff living in a slide on PowerPoint, some stuff living in a Google Sheet or on Excel. I’ve got to then flip over to Teams...” — all that’s just discombobulated.
With Ninety, it’s less administration, and you can see how the connectivity of these things all comes together. It’s the interconnectivity that really makes Ninety powerful when running annual meetings.
Our tools are dynamic. The hard part about a PowerPoint or piece of paper is that I’ve got to figure out how to maintain, update, and share it. In Ninety, everyone can have access to it.
Tips for Running a Great Annual Planning Meeting
Here are a few more tips for running an Annual Planning Meeting:
- Prepare. You need to do a lot of planning so you can think really strategically about the business.
- Research and talk to advisors. Find out what’s happening within the market ahead of time.
- Think about team health. Prior to the meeting, quietly think about how everybody is doing. Read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. Ask, “How are we doing on trust, healthy conflict, and other important indicators of team health?”
- Put time into a SWOT analysis. Go deep on it within the software.
Ultimately, it’s agreement and alignment for the next year. It’s team health. And then it’s execution. It’s great to have goals, but if we don’t have the discipline to achieve them, then it doesn’t really matter much.
Kris Snyder is driven by his passion for working with entrepreneurs. After 25 years of building and leading five entrepreneurial companies, in 2018 he founded a growth advisory firm called Impact Architects where he serves as the Managing Partner.
Additionally, in 2019, he began working with Ninety, a company focused on supporting the same target market by providing business operating system software, where he serves as the Head of Finance and Partnerships.
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