CHAPTER 11
SETTING TARGETS
‘In preparing for war I have always found that plans are useless but planning is essential.’
Dwight Eisenhower
In this chapter:
You wrote the plan, you pitched it, you won the backing. Great, but is that it? Can you now archive the files? Nope!
Now you should use the plan for a different purpose – not for obtaining backing, but as a tool for implementation. The plan can be used to assess the performance of both the business as a whole and of individual managers.
If you have managed to get a backer on board, whether an angel, a seed capitalist, a venture capitalist or a private equity house, they are going to be most insistent on you getting this and the next chapter right.
They know that, if you deliver to plan, they will achieve their hoped-for return. So, they will be keen to check how your company progresses against that plan at every stage along the way.
And they will want to incentivise managers to deliver against that plan. Or else . . .
To make such monitoring of progress relevant and easy, your backer will ask you to specify your key performance indicators and draw up appropriate milestones.