Surviving in Volatile Times
Though the United States economy is slowly recovering, 93% of counties in the country are still in the process of recovering from the 2008 recession. So how will you make sure your company withstands the test of time?
You need to learn from past successes and failures, manage current projects, and plan for the future. Making a business plan is not enough, sticking to it and understanding your actual costs involved is necessary.
Building a business plan for success
Make your project goals S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound). This topic has been talked to death, so I won't bore you with too much detail in the explanation of the concept. In terms of project planning, make sure you are specifying WHO is doing a task. Don't leave in place-holder names for long, assign a person to the task. And once you have done so, put their name in the plan.
Make your plan time-bound by understanding how much time it actually takes and updating it. Use past experience and ask whoever you assigned to work on the task again how much time it will take to complete it after they have already started working on it. Updating your project plan as time goes on achieves two things: Keeping the project on-track, and keeping it realistic. It allows you to check on progress and make sure things are going according to plan.
Keep your project profitable
If you accurately track your time and understand who is actually completing the tasks, you help keep the project on-time and on-budget. It is so easy for large projects to get out of control, don't let it happen to you. This ensures a better ROI by helping you understand your true project costs. What do you really have the time and money for? Is it worth it?
Just focusing on if your project is worth it is not enough. Are you customers profitable too? Sometimes you have to fire a customer if they become too expensive with their demands. The customer is not always right; there is such a thing as a bad customer.
Take Risks
It sounds a bit counterintuitive, but being too safe will get you nowhere. "A ship in the harbor is safe- but that is not what ships are built for." -John A. Shedd
Make sure you are at the head of the pack in terms of innovation so that you stand out. It is so easy to fall into the pattern of only undergoing safe projects and sticking with the same trends you have been. But doing so will never allow you to grow. You can make your risks more safe by analyzing past data (properly tracking time, annoying though it can be, makes this much easier). Wild risks are dangerous, but educated ones are much more stable.
Focus your efforts into understand what is actually happening with your projects. Keep them from getting out of control so that you stay profitable and can afford to take risks that will pay off in the future. Figure out what you have done wrong and done right, use it to fix current projects and plan for the future. Doing so will help you survive in these volatile times.