Just Say No to Business Plans
Use canvases instead
Serious Business Plans prove you’re Serious (but maybe that’s all)
It used to be the case, and often still is, was that before you even thought about starting a Business, you needed to create a Business Plan. Maybe we should put it in all caps BUSINESS PLAN. Yes, that’s better!
It was a 30–40 page document (or even longer) that broke up your business into various categories like, Marketing, Projected Profit and Costs, Competitive Landscape, etc. This was primarily to prove to potential investors or the bank that you had a Plan and weren’t some random schmuck who hadn’t done their homework or thought stuff through.
Needless to say, it’s a lot of work.
In theory, it was probably a GOOD IDEA. However, the reality often was that the plan never really survived contact with the Market when the business rolled out. To paraphrase the Prussian general Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
This isn’t to say it’s bad to have a plan and to spend time thinking things through but many people thought, “there has to be a better way.”
Seriously, people don’t have time to read your Business Plan
They might be able to read one page though.
The Business Model Canvas enters the picture
Around 2009, Alexander Osterwalder came up with something called the Business Model Canvas, which consists of nine sections on a single page where the room sections take up varied a bit to constrain and emphasize how much information was presented. This helps to also force a certain amount of prioritization of what’s important to include and what is not.
Using the canvas, people can get a quick sense of what the overall business proposition is and it’s much easier to give feedback and change if necessary. The canvas implicitly acknowledges that it’s not possible to nail down every detail in a plan.
We can be a Lean, Mean, Iterating Machine (sometimes)
A little later, a book called the Lean Startup appeared by Eric Ries, which among other things, advocated for an iterative, “fail fast” plus Learning approach. Once again, the goal was to take a more flexible approach towards business development. This dovetails nicely with the Business Model Canvas method and the two of them are often used together. That said, these approaches are generally best suited for digitally based products and services.
It’s possible to use them in manufacturing but much more challenging since the initial upfront costs and thus the required planning are typically higher so it’s much more difficult to quickly change or pivot on physical objects. I say this metaphorically because obviously, it’s sometimes really fun to literally pivot on objects!
Lean Canvas enters the picture kicking the other one out (for me).
As a UX Designer, although the Business Canvas can be useful, it isn’t exactly user oriented. I needed something that did that, and Ash Maruya’s Lean Canvas was pretty perfect.
I stumbled across it a few years ago and has become my go-to-tool when confronted with a new project. I’ve even used it to get a handle on existing projects that I’ve been brought into.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Leanstack whatsoever, I just find it useful. I bought his book but haven’t paid for a site subscription. I feel a little bad about mooching off the free plan all this time.
I recommend his book and his site (although I’m not sure if it’s been bought out). It gives you a virtual version of the Lean Canvas paper, in which you can fill out each section online in a numbered sequence. This makes it a bit easier to share and collaborate with others as well as spin up quick ideas from anywhere. If you’re like me, you have a lot of ideas that are too half baked to share so you might not want to use that feature.
It can also be applied to specific features within a project but might be a little overkill in many instances.
OK, maybe I’ve been exaggerating for effect a bit
Like I said before, this technique really helps you to get a good overview and focus on key elements, identify gaps and more importantly, quickly understand if the idea is weak or viable. If you want to commit to creating an entire business plan after that you can do so with at least a decent grounding and validation of the basic concept. I think you get the idea though.
