By Christy Pashkovskiy, Marketing Director

As we enter the new year, businesses are reflecting on their successes, accomplishments, and maybe even failures of the past year. These observations help to shape planning and goal setting for the year ahead, which is important for not only businesses, but as individuals too. If you are reviewing strategic business plans, or you are looking to personally forge ahead into a successful 2023, remember the following tips for sustainable, start-of-year planning.

Celebrate Success and Acknowledge Failure 

It is important to look back on 2022 and celebrate the great accomplishments of the year. Recognize the achievements of your team and build on that success to motivate and strengthen your company. On the other hand, it is equally crucial to examine your shortcomings and consider what you learned from them, but avoid dwelling on them.

Review processes and procedures 

As you begin to plan, make sure you are auditing your current processes and procedures. What processes need to be changed? What processes can be automated? Are there tools you have that no longer serve your business, or you, as an individual? Review the resources you have and determine what could be changed, where you could save money, what could enhance productivity and most importantly, what’s working well.

Gather and Give Feedback 

Send out surveys, talk to peers, and generally gather feedback on the year behind us and the year ahead. Feedback is a valuable way to guide improvement, planning and goal setting. Ask others about things you are considering yourself as it pertains to your strategic plan; processes, procedures, company culture, productivity, and more.

Set SMART Goals 

When you get to the point where you are actually putting goals down on paper, be sure to use SMART goals. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. These goals will help you to focus your efforts and productively achieve what you want as a business, as a professional or personally. Strategically, it is also beneficial to set high level goals, and break them down into smaller goals. Focusing on monthly, quarterly, annual and long-term goals can be a great way to structure your plans.

Create Clear and Concise Outlines 

Document your goals and planning. Be sure to have a clear, outlined, documented strategy that can be easily shareable and communicated to others in your organization.

Brainstorm 

As you reflect and plan, use this time to brainstorm new ideas. Keep a list of thoughts that come up as you are planning that could potentially turn into business strategies. Invite others to join you in brainstorming sessions to share ideas and cultivate open ideation.

Set up Ways to Measure 

Be sure that you have clear KPIs and ways to track success with each goal. As mentioned above, a SMART goal needs to be measurable and time-bound. This enables you to stay on track, and accomplish tasks supporting your goals.

The time and effort you put into your business now will pay dividends in the year ahead. What other planning tactics do you use to strategically position your organization, or yourself for success in 2023?