How to be Prepared in Business

Introduction to preparation

The Boy Scouts live by a code, “Be Prepared.” The US Coast Guard also has a motto, “Semper Paratus”, or, “always ready”.

Both mottos are based on a simple understanding– the only way to be ready for everything is to prepare for every situation. The procedure for getting prepared for something is the same, whether you’re preparing a business presentation, a product launch, or to release an IPO. The steps are often the same; the specific actions in those steps will vary.

The importance of preparation

When we’re younger, we will often “fly by the seat of our pants.” We don’t prepare for things well. We let things happen and try to plan as we go along.

In business, we need to plan. We need to plan everything, from how we will expand our business to how we will ensure that there is always paper in the photocopy machine.

These preparations are done in essentially the same way. Here are the basic steps in the process:

Preliminary plan

All preparations begin the same way, with a preliminary plan. The purpose of this plan is to start the concept so you can flesh out the steps in greater detail.

Often, this preliminary plan is “written on a napkin.” While not actually written on a napkin, they are usually just the first few steps to a plan.

It starts with having a goal and then a starting point. Like taking a trip in a car, you start with where you and where you want to end up. At this stage of the process, you don’t even know what roads you will take, where you’ll stop for lunch, or even what car you’ll drive. All you know is where you are and where you want to end up.

Creating an outline

The next step will be to add some fundamentals of the plan. It’s not enough to just act on ideas you’re passionate about– though passion is a key ingredient to a successful idea. You must plan each step of the process. To carry on the road trip concept, you will look at some of the most fundamental ideas: will you fly, what car will you drive, who is going with you, and will you take the dog? In a business plan, such as planning for a presentation, you might look at things like will you use a whiteboard or a Powerpoint presentation, do you want to narrate it live or will you record a narration, will you offer a handout to take away?

You’ve just taken the first steps to really turning a want (to go someplace or to do a business presentation) into an actual plan

Fleshing out a plan

In this step, you’ll consider more detailed needs. You will look at more specific steps to get you to your goal.

For our road trip, how many miles or hours will we travel? Will we need to stay overnight? Can we use our car or do we need to rent one? Each of these questions needs an answer, but not a specific solution. For example, we will travel for 16 hours by car, so we want to stay overnight and we will take a rental car.

If you’re planning a business presentation, you will have decided that you’re doing a PowerPoint presentation and that you will give everyone a handout. You aren’t writing the presentation yet, but you are getting a better sense of what you must get the job done.

Milestones

In this stage, we’re ready to add details. Here we look for resources and the specific goals we need to meet step by step. These are the milestones in our project. Each represents a stop on the way to our larger goal.

For our business presentation, we can plan how many PowerPoint slides we will need, what they will say, and what images we might need for this. We’re still working on “paper” here and not even opening the computer.

Similarly, we will plan our road trip. Consider how many hours we want to drive until we stop, where we’ll stop, and what time we want to arrive at our destination. We need not find a hotel or gas stations. We need to know what the milestones we want to hit.

Looking for holes

Now we can consider where our plan might go awry. We’re looking at our plan in greater detail, but without specifics to make sure we’ve accounted for everything.

For example, if, on our road trip, we are planning to drive 12 hours straight, we should consider if that’s something we can do. If we can only handle driving for 8 hours, our plan needs to be changed. For our business presentation, we might look at the idea we’re presenting in an unfamiliar meeting room where we have no idea if there is a large monitor.

We’re looking for roadblocks that will stop our plan from going off successfully.

Gathering the materials

Our next step is to get everything together. We gathered some details but now will put it all in order. We can put the pieces into a plan. For our road trip, we can plan out where we’ll eat, where we’ll stay, how much fuel we’ll need and so on. For our presentation, we will create our slides in PowerPoint putting the entire presentation. This is where we can see our plan with all of its details. Every step and every item is gathered in one place and ready to be executed.

The Power of Planning

Planning is everything in business. In fact, little should happen without a plan. Taking a road trip without a plan is not a big deal. Everything you need can be found on the road. If you will issue an IPO or plan to build a new factory, you need to prepare. Forethought, a clearly laid out plan, and adherence to plan as much as circumstances allow are the key to success.

Creating a comprehensive plan in order to reach a goal is at the heart of OKRs, a highly effective goal-setting methodology. You can determine if your business is ready to implement OKRs, and put your ambitious goals in terms of objectives and key results, creating a roadmap to how you will achieve your goals. This offers a clearly-organized and effective way to plan your quarter, or year, and the priorities you’ll have for that period of time.