SUCCESSFUL PLANNING | Budgeting and Financial Planning

Successful planning is a mixture of paradoxes at best. First, it’s not possible to judge success until it’s history, or as Yogi Berra would say, ‘‘It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.’’ And once it’s over, we can look back and judge failure, success, or in between. Second, regardless of the circumstances, it’s not possible to go back and change what happened or didn’t happen. History might be re-written, or written differently, but if it is, then it isn’t accurate. Lastly, it’s not possible to predict the future, except in terms of probabilities, such as the typical weather forecaster might say ‘‘a 20% chance of rain,’’ or ‘‘temperatures tomorrow are going to drop into the 80s.’’ In the instant case, it’s not possible to predict or know if our planning has been successful until it’s too late to do something about it.

Successful budgeting and financial planning is one of the keys to long-term success. If your department or organization doesn’t have a plan, then make a plan to make a plan and follow through. You will feel better and improve your chances of success in doing what you want to do. If your organization has an annual business plan, then live by it and as time passes, make adjustments in your day-to-day or month-to-month work to stay on track, adjust or make up for misses, and watch for opportunities to capitalize on. At the end of the year, you can look back and say what you did well, and what needs improvement. Hopefully, along the way, one of the accomplishments was a business plan for the next year.

Once successful budgeting and financial planning has been instituted and seems to be working well for a period of 2 or more years, consideration should be given to longer range planning cycles, sometimes called strategic planning. Large, successful organizations aren’t born, they are made—not overnight—but over many nights and sometimes years. It’s also true that they didn’t get to their present state without mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes were planning mistakes; other times, they were operating mistakes.

One other important ingredient,  is a long-range strategic plan that dovetails with the annual business plan and well-oiled periodic reporting practices. This last part is no small matter; very few organizations practice it well, most are mediocre at it or simply don’t practice it at all.