Take some action.

Once you have a few answers for questions above, you’ve got to take some action straight away! Start off small. Get some business cards printed up (vistaprint.co.uk will give you 250 colour business cards for free!) and you may also like to register a web site domain name (you can register web names from as little as £2.59 per year through 123-reg.com). Once you’ve got ball rolling you can start thinking about bigger action steps that you will need to take.

Seek out other business people.

Take a look at your social network. If all your friends and family are employees, chance are any conversations about work will be about 9-5 grind. If this is case, start adding a few small business people to your social network. Buy them lunch, ask them questions about how they started out in business. I am sure that you will find plenty of inspiration as well as some words of advice about how to run a business. You may also like to consider joining up with groups so you can network with like minded individuals (Toastmasters is excellent start and for online Networking check out ecademy.com)

The most important consideration.

One of most important things to consider when setting up a business is to choose a business that you are passionate about. There are so many different ways you can make money so you might as well do something that excites you.

Copyright Damien Senn 2005. All rights reserved.

Damien Senn is a Life and Business Coach as well as a fully qualified Chartered Accountant. He helps professionals, artists and entrepreneurs create compelling futures.

He is the author of the 'Senn-Sational Success Journal' and has developed his own coaching model called the 'Senn-Sational Success System'.

As in all Phases it is wise to identify a Project Leader to manage document controls, lead audits and report to management.

Review Audit Results and Process Measures

When we pass down a street for first time, our minds are focused on reaching destination. Upon returning, we are able to notice things that were previously missed. Returning allows us to go through same path of original Discovery Phase in this different light.

This will involve reviewing audit results, process measures and customer satisfaction to determine possible adjustments to mission, objectives and action plans as well as effectiveness criteria. You will want to asses appropriateness of these elements now that you have completed your "outbound journey" through Planning, Development and Implementation Phases. What will you see differently? How will you prepare for cycle to begin again next year?

Culmination of Policies and Procedures Project

In Phase I, we learned how your organization specifies project mission, objectives and effectiveness criteria. Phase II entailed setting requirements for project tools, budgets and schedules to manage your project. Phase III taught us about identifying and testing processes within system. And in Phase IV we learned about learning. So now Re-Discovery Phase will culminate project that started 6-12 months ago (time certainly does go by quickly, doesn’t it?). And with these five phases completed, you will have undertaken perhaps quite a long process – but also one that will lead you to building (and maintaining) an effective management system.