Making Effective Business Plans easily

Start-ups, new businesses are emerging everywhere and ever so often senior leaders need to make a business plan. But how do you easily make one which is also effective and easy to communicate. I use Mind Maps, a simple radiant & visual technique, for making Business Plans. What you see in the image above is a Mind Map template which you can use easily for building your next business plan.

Let’s have a quick look at each of the main branches of this Mind Map to help you get started with your business plan. Using the hints and tips given below for each branch try to make the sub-branches of the corresponding main branch using few key words or, even better, with images. Once completed you will be amazed with the insight

1. GOALS: represent the business aspiration or objectives that you would like to achieve, preferably quantified, and with a time frame.

2. WHAT: is the
   1. Identity we would like to build for our business?
   2. Product or Service that we are going to offer?
   3. SWOT for product or service being offered.

3. WHERE: This is primarily the market analysis. The Identity we would like to build (as identified in 2) will help in correct isolation of our Market in terms of the area /geography or any other stratification relevant to the product/service?

4. HOW: do we  implement the strategy. What are the resources and consistent actions required for us to win in the market or against the competition for the identified Product or Service?

5. CAPABILITIES: What are the required capabilities versus the one’s available.
6. WHEN: What are timelines for the major milestones for the business.

7. GOVERNANCE: Governance Structure or Management System for the Business Plan implementation check? What is the frequency with which we would like to review the progress and with whom?

8. FINANCIALS: Once we have clarity about the other aspects of the Business Plan, it is relatively simple to do a financial analysis on this branch using metrics identified by the organisation.

Need help in building your business plan the Mind Map way?  Drop me a message by clicking here.

Happy Mind Mapping of your Business Plan!!