Of so many business planning books, which I hold in high regard, this one is the simplest to read and follow, and yet still packed with useful tools and powerful tips. To some extent, I would consider it to be a no-frills, straight-to-the-point, hands-on kind of planning book.In a nut shell, it provides a step by step approach, with a total of 9 steps, and involves 3 critical stages: gathering information, formulating ideas, and planning actions.
In fact, it has many thought-provoking Prompt Questions and clearly-defined Checklists to help you execute your thinking and planning work - starting from scanning the environment (to find out what's out there), measuring your organisational health, creating more options, right up to implementing an action plan with a monitoring system, using Gantt Charts. These unique features are intended to stimulate and guide all your thinking processes, with each of the nine steps involving a different thinking process.
As a mater of fact, by the time you have gone through all the Prompt Questions and completed all the Checklists, you would have already thought through analytically, numerically, reflectively, predictively, imaginatively, visually, creatively, critically, empathetically, ethically, pragmatically and politically. Also, they have been structured in such a way that you would have developed strategic conversations skills with your people across all levels of the organisation, in the course of the planning exercise.
From a strategic thinking standpoint, this book really scores high marks from me, in spite of its simplicity. When reading this book, it reminds me of two other good business planning books with practical "hands-on" features: `Breakaway Planning,' by Paul Levesque, whose book I have also reviewed earlier. In comparison, `Breakaway Planning' gives a more detailed treatment. The other is `Putting It All Together: A Guide to Strategic Thinking,' by William Rothschild, whose book also gives a more detailed treatment.
This book also comes with a CD-Rom, which provides a business case example, using the 9-step approach.
My only `adverse' comment about the book - it would have been more complete if the authors have crafted a global flow chart at the end pages, showing all the 9 steps in sequence within the 3 prescribed stages, in concert with all the applicable thinking processes and resulting action possibilities. This would have been a superb feature for more visually-oriented readers, like me.
In summing up, if you do not have much time to read, and want a proven tool to help kick-start your planning, this one is for you.
