Part One: Discovery

Part Two: Planning

Next Week: Implementation

Before beginning our discussion of The Development Phase, let’s recap. In Phase I (Discovery) we learned how your organization specifies project mission, objectives and effectiveness criteria. Phase II (Planning) entailed setting requirements for project tools, budgets and schedules to manage your project.

Now, I’m no entertainment mogul, but The Development Phase reminds me of producing a Hollywood move. When we sit in a theater and watch latest blockbuster, we see a finished product and assume it was made pretty much as it looks. And we would be wrong. Making a movie, much like process of building a strong policy and procedure system, is a non-linear process with a tremendous amount of “behind scenes” support.

Strong Policy and Procedure System

Just as every great movie is guided by a talented Director; your effort to build an effective management system requires a skilled Project Leader. The role is especially critical in Development Phase because it is during this stage that time, effort and expense of entire project cast is involved, and much like actual shooting phase of a film production, it can consume up to 50% of your project cost.

What skills make a strong Project Leader? Besides obvious qualities of good organizational, communication and time management skills, I include policy and procedure or process development expertise. Depending on your staff, this may require an outside resource.

Management and Project Leader

To begin, key point to consider in developing your business plan is time restraints of your audience. If your audience is a retired angel investor, he may have few obligations and can spend an hour reviewing your business plan. However, more likely scenario is that a venture capitalist, corporate investor or loan officer will review your plan while sitting at a desk topped with fifty other business plans. As such, it is critical that your plan conveys its key points quickly and easily – this is where graphs or charts come in.

In determining whether to use a graph or chart, consider old adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” The point here is that picture should save a thousand words. That is, graph or chart should supplement text; it should not be explained ad naseum in text, or that defeats its purpose. Likewise, graph or chart must be relevant and support text, rather than detract from it.