Benefits of Planning in Management
Benefits of Planning in Management
Benefits of Planning in Management
Breaks down silos – Most people in a company are focused on making things happen
in their own world. Planning creates the opportunity for all leaders to come together
to examine and debate problems and opportunities from a holistic perspective.
Provides a safe harbor for “possibility thinking” – Five words prevent an organization
from achieving its full potential: We’ve never done that before. Even your best
people are reluctant to offer their ideas on ways to tackle a problem or suggest a new
way of making money if they know their comments will be stiff-armed. Planning
provides a structured way to talk openly about issues that affect performance.
Motivates your team and increases their value – Once you and your team start talking
about possibilities, you’ll discover a new level of energy in the room. The future can
be intimidating or it can be exciting. It’s your choice. Good planning processes will
make thinking about the future exciting. Not because you’re sugar-coating
things. Just the opposite: You are raising issues and inviting your leaders to address
them. People want to contribute and they want to succeed. Planning provides the
blueprint.
Exposes blind spots – We all have blind spots. We’re simply oblivious to certain
people, situations or even our own actions that others see all too clearly or in a
completely different light. Planning provides a framework to ask questions and
expose blind spots.
Ensures you’re working on the right things versus doing things right – Planning is
about trust-building, not budget-building. Budgeting is a form of planning, but it
perpetuates the silo thinking that likely already exists within your organization as each
department or functional area prepares its set of resource requirements. When the
future is approached from a zero-based, clean-slate perspective, your team is forced to
confront realities, which can build trust and lead to focusing on what really matters.
Brings order and clarity to your business – CEOs are intent on getting things done
effectively and improving their bottom-line results. Since you can’t do it all, planning
brings clarity to who will do what by when in order to deliver the greatest impact.
Uncovers new ideas and areas for growth and improvement – Value is determined
outside your company by your customers and prospects. If you can’t answer “Why
us?” don’t expect the market to know. Use the planning process to identify or
confirm your core competency and examine the value the market places on it. What
unmet needs can we address? What systems can we streamline to improve
profitability? Planning should help you uncover new or more effective ways for
giving your customers more of what they want – more efficiently.
Achieves alignment among your leadership team – Lack of alignment among the
leadership team will, at the least, hold back your organization and, at worst, kill it. If
senior leaders can’t agree on what’s to be done and how, by whom and by when, this
lack of alignment will trickle down through your organization and dilute or even
poison daily operations.
Determines specific objectives and action items to be implemented – At the
beginning of the day, it’s all about possibilities. At the end of the day, it’s all about
results. You and your team will agree on your priorities and develop a written action
plan focused on making the right things happen. Your plan needn’t be long or
complicated to be effective. The shorter the better. I start with a one-page plan called
a Migration Chart.
Establishes accountability – Of the hundreds of leaders I speak to and work with each
year, accountability is the greatest single threat to execution. What guarantee do I
have that this plan will work? I’m asked. None, if there’s no commitment from the
leadership team. None, if the company – starting at the top – is unwilling to
change. None, if there’s any discipline and performance is not tracked. A plan is
your written contract that establishes – and drives – accountability.
Benefits of roll of leadership in management
The term "leadership and management" is often banded around as two separate
aspects of business, with the familiar quote (and the image that goes along with it) -
"Are you a leader or are you a manager?", "Boss or Leader?”... Truth is both are
crucial to the success of your business.
This simplistic view of a leader and a manager are not (or don't have to be) as black
and white as traditional theories suggest. Both come with benefits that complement
each other, especially at senior manager level. Senior managers and business
owners need to look at how they can develop their leadership AND management
skills, not only to learn new skills and improve their CVs, but to ensure the business
thrive!
There's also a knock-on effect that comes with better leadership and management
that touches many aspects of the business and its employees. Here are 7 additional
benefits that come from better leadership and management:
1. Finance.
You may be hesitant to spend on leadership and management, especially over other
more tangible assets, but unlike most capital expenditure there's a range of grants
and funding available to support you. It's worth checking out what programmers or
projects are available in your area to get a piece of the pie!
2. Experts.
Getting advice from impartial and experienced experts is invaluable. Bringing in
external expertise can really help - not only deal with the particular issue that they're
there to help with, but also with other aspects of running a business that crop up in
conversation. Business coaches, advisers, growth managers etc. can equip you with
the skills or insight required, plus they are usually self-employed and have a little
black book FULL of useful contacts, and would be happy to make introductions to
help you get the best support that's right for your business!
3. We all win.
Leadership and management training should be shared and deployed throughout the
business. In some cases, match funding applies to the whole senior management
team - not just the head honcho. With the business leaders energised and
encouraged, the positivity will spread throughout the business and a new culture can
begin. If the training will only benefit the MD then it's a waste of time - the whole
business needs to gain as a result.
4. Specific solutions.
Leadership and management is a pretty broad brush area. Sometimes a generic
workshop about how to be a better leader is no real use to anyone. Find out exactly
what would make a difference to you and your company. Business advice is best
when it's bespoke - one size doesn't fit all. Usually a growth manager or the like will
spend time really getting to know the senior managers to truly identify the needs of
the business. This could include looking at types of learning style such as Belbin, or
identifying where a clash of personalities on the board causes conflict and friction.
Only then can you understand EXACTLY what is needed and how best to help the
business to grow. In a recent case study, a firm of solicitors received digital
marketing training for every partner to get with the times.
6. Innovation!
Leadership and management development is a key driver in embedding a culture of
innovation. As the saying goes, 'If you do what you've always done then you'll get
what you've always got'. A new perspective and great insights can come from
leadership and management training - who knows what your business is capable of?
So many times a business has become more successful by diversifying as a result of
better information and acting on it. Innovation isn't just a new product; it's the way
you do things. Leadership and management training can be done alongside other
core workshops, master classes and coaching, ensuring that you get the new ideas
and insights to drive the business forward.
Keep your branching model simple, with branches lasting only as long as necessary.
Each branch should have a single policy for who can make changes, when CI builds
happen, what tests to run, etc.
Appoint a single owner for each codeine or branch to resolve any ambiguities in the
policy.
Creating branches for a team, task, or feature can be helpful for teams, but keep
these short-lived and remove them at the earliest opportunity. Having too many
dormant branches adds complexity and increases the risk of using the wrong branch.
With most projects, releases have to be made while development continues. Create
branches to separate a release while final testing is running or if you have multiple
releases in production.
Helix Streams – which are often called "branches with brains" – implements a robust
workflow to control the behavior of branches. Helix Streams manage development
(which is usually unstable) and releases (which are stable, restricted changes).
Streams are great for simplifying and visualizing the flow of changes from
development to release. They also help to prevent merging errors, especially on
larger projects.
Protect Your Mainline
A common pattern for Continuous Delivery is to have a single mainline. This ensures
the mainline is always buildable and potentially releasable. That means all commits
have to be high quality. Use code reviews and pre-commit CI build and test.
Streams automate “merge down” and “copy up” after testing and verification.
Merging down is merging code from a solid release into a work in progress
development stream. Copy up is taking a completed project from dev to release.
Learn how to assess and deploy high-quality, productive, and robust software
version management. Download our white paper, 'Best Practices for Version
Management' for more information.