{"id":16357,"date":"2014-10-20T10:42:18","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T08:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/survival-of-the-plan-est\/"},"modified":"2014-10-20T10:42:18","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T08:42:18","slug":"survival-of-the-plan-est","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/survival-of-the-plan-est\/","title":{"rendered":"“Survival of the Plan-est”… ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ulrike<\/a> A few weeks ago, I found myself in a bizarre situation. As an entrepreneur\u2014but also as a startup consultant working with a group of executives\u2014I found myself having to defend the idea of \u201cnot planning.\u201d <\/p>\n

How so?<\/p>\n

The deciding factor was a claim made by a veteran controller that simply \u201ceverything\u201d could be planned and that every problem in the company was always the result of poor planning. \u201cSurvival of the Plan-est,\u201d so to speak. <\/p>\n

“Hmm,” I thought to myself. I wasn’t going to let that claim stand. For example, I can still vividly recall the situation in 2008, when all certainties in the global economy crumbled overnight. <\/p>\n

We finally agreed that there were simply some bigger and smaller “unforeseen factors” in the planning. Fine by me, I thought to myself\u2014if that’s what you want to call it… <\/p>\n

But seriously: Planning is, of course, important. Still, I often find myself sitting across from founders who are frustrated by the task of having to plan their business activities in detail. \u201cHow am I supposed to know what will happen in three years? I haven\u2019t even started yet!\u201d they say. That\u2019s true, of course.<\/p>\n

So here’s my advice: redefine “planning.”<\/p>\n

Planning has nothing to do with a crystal ball. Planning is thinking through different situations. Call it “developing scenarios.” <\/p>\n

Let me emphasize once again that I do not mean to say anything against planning. But in the midst of all this planning, some people forget what really matters: real-world practice and their clients. That is why I am also strongly opposed to subsidy programs that reward students for months of planning without giving them the opportunity to gain practical experience. <\/p>\n

Plan, try it out, adjust the plan, keep trying, adjust the plan again, and so on\u2014that’s how you reach your goal. Everything else is just theory. <\/p>\n

So go for it! Think about what might happen if… And then give it a try. Things will probably turn out quite differently than you expected, but you’ll learn which factors are important and which aren’t. <\/p>\n

To put it a bit bluntly: the number of rolls of toilet paper needed over three years probably isn’t all that important, but it’s often (and I’m only exaggerating a little) used as an example because it’s a quantity that’s reasonably easy to estimate.<\/p>\n

In the same plan, revenue is then depicted as a \u201chockey stick curve\u201d: relatively flat at first, followed by a rapid, steep rise after just a few years. This is the result of exponential growth curves that arise purely mathematically in the business plan. And they have never\u2014truly, NEVER\u2014played out that way in reality. <\/p>\n

But what are you supposed to do if you have absolutely no idea how revenue will develop? Wouldn’t an assumption of “x% annually” make sense? <\/p>\n

No. But you can start this way, as long as you revise your plans every few months and incorporate the insights you\u2019ve gained. This puts some overly ambitious approaches into perspective; things often turn out quite differently than planned. And most importantly, by regularly giving the matter thought, you\u2019ll be prepared for an uncertain future and will certainly be better equipped to adapt to new situations. <\/p>\n

I admit that this kind of approach hasn\u2019t caught on at all banks yet, but it has at most of them. Banking professionals feel much more comfortable with realistic, continuously updated plans than with a business plan drawn up merely to fulfill a requirement, which is then never looked at again. <\/p>\n

So instead of \u201cSurvival of the Plan-est,\u201d it\u2019s \u201cSurvival of the Fittest\u201d in the very classic sense. Darwin\u2019s idea is not that the strongest survive, but almost the opposite: that the best-adapted make it. So plan regularly so that you can adapt optimally. <\/p>\n

With that in mind, happy planning!<\/p>\n

Yours,<\/p>\n

Ulrike Hudelmaier<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, I found myself in a … <\/p>\n

weiterlesen …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-personal-note","category-tips-for-self-employment","tfu-survival-of-the-plan-est"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tfu.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}