From the Sponsor’s Desk – Power Planning with a Business Plan Framework

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

—Sun Tsu, Ancient Chinese Military strategist

As a project or change manager, the more information you have about a planned change, the better. Knowing the rationale for the change, the strategic relationships and the milieu within which the change will be delivered are essential. Getting that insight at the start amplifies your ability to help the stakeholders and their clients achieve a timely and successful outcome.

Unfortunately, most projects start out with vast voids and expansive shades of grey on a multitude of key factors. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a practice that could help you illuminate and eliminate those unknowns expeditiously, right up front? Well, there is! This case is about a boutique consulting firm based in Winnipeg named Certio Group. Certio Group prides itself on its ability to help organizations and projects understand and address the potholes and pitfalls that litter the road to success.

Thanks to Andres Holm for the details on this story.

The Situation

A successful welding company had been operating in the local and regional community for some years. It offered steel fabrication and installation for commercial, industrial and residential projects as well as on-site welding. Part of their business involved the repair and modification of shipping containers, those big steel boxes that are used for shipboard, road and rail shipping. This started with the creation of pools for particular clients and morphed into providing full-scale customization of the containers.

The company owners, Andrew and Jaclyn Rhodes, saw an opportunity to expand their business using their expertise with the shipping containers. They were aware of a growing market for custom homes using the shipping containers like Lego blocks. The blocks were being connected side-by-side and end-on-end and stacked in a multitude of creative ways to deliver homes that adapted to unique physical sites and addressed customers’ desires.

The Rhodes, in considering the expansion opportunities, decided to seek outside expertise to accelerate the process. They contacted Andres Holm at Certio Group for advice. Certio Group is a business consulting firm based in Winnipeg, Canada that offers a variety of services including assistance with funding acquisition, developing business plans and proposals, market research, strategic planning and business development.

The Goal

The Rhodes and Northern Green Homes had a vision: to build their container home business leveraging the skills and processes from their welding operations to create a profitable, sustainable company. They dreamt of high quality, highly productive, just-in-time manufacturing process with a core of cost-effective standard practices and mass customization capability to satisfy a wide range of clients. Certio Group signed on to help them achieve their goals.

The Project

Andres Holm, Certio Group’s Managing Partner, met with the Rhodes and proposed a rapid response plan to get them started on a solid foundation. There were some key components:

• The Rhodes had to be actively involved every step of the way. They had to know as much about the plan as Certio Group’s staff. Ultimately, they had to own it.
• Certio Group proposed using their standard business plan framework. The Rhodes agreed.
• Certio Group proposed a ten-week target for the completion of the plan, with subsequent increments as needed. Again the Rhodes agreed.

The framework that drove the work is shown below:

Over the next ten weeks, Certio Group’s staff designed the plan while providing incremental updates for the Rhodes to review. That was power planning indeed

The Results

On completion, the Certio Group had produced a plan that the Rhodes could embrace wholeheartedly. The plan included a number of key recommendations that varied somewhat from the Rhodes’ original thoughts.

• The plan recommended focusing on housing for indigenous and remote communities. The high-end market was well served and very competitive. The recommended market was poorly served, often with inadequate housing.
• A standard two shipping container unit with two bedrooms, fully framed, glazed, insulated, plumbed and wired could be supplied to the target market for approximately $160,000 (or less in some instances). The homeowner needed to provide the lot, road access and electrical, water and septic system services plus furniture and appliances.
• A variety of customizations were possible using the planned standard practices, skills, and facilities including additional bedrooms and utility rooms. That would allow the company to be responsive to a variety of market needs.
• The research found numerous sources of funding and financing from both the public and private sectors. There was also unexpected interest from outside investors. The target market and target pricing could provide reasonable profit margins for the company while enabling future growth and expansion.
• Many of the processes and skills used by the welding company would be perfectly suitable to the new venture’s needs, reducing costs and risks and accelerating the start-up process.

With the Rhodes at the helm, Northern Green Homes are now working that plan. We’ll check back in a year or so to see how the plans have weathered reality.

What a Great Leader Learned

Northern Green Homes leveraged Certio Group’s strengths to accelerate its start-up effort. The following factors were crucial to that process:

• Frameworks – Certio Group developed a standard framework for business plan development and refined it on a client by client basis as needed. The framework ensured that all vital information was captured and considered. As a result, the business plans developed from the framework were robust and comprehensive.
• Targeted research – Certio Group took pride in its research capabilities. Driven by the framework, it examined, among other things, the competitive landscape, financial and funding needs and offerings and the regulatory climate. The findings surgically shaped the resulting business plan contents and directions.
• Relationships – While Certio Group’s relationship with the client was paramount, it also maintained ongoing relationships with all levels of government, with banks and potential funding organizations and outside investment organizations. Those in-place contacts and the insights they provided allowed Certio Group to respond rapidly to their client’s interests.
• Vision – Creating an appropriate and compelling vision isn’t waiting for serendipity to provide the answer. It requires an iterative exploration that blends the client’s needs, expectations and dreams with the research findings and constant collaboration. The aspirational meets the possible.
• Change management – Certio Group is not just about one business plan and done. They recognize that well-executed tactics are the glue that makes strategies and plans a reality. To enhance ongoing operational performance, they offer the “Virtual Board Member” role to provide an independent voice to help keep things on track or revisit findings if the market changes.

These five best practices helped Certio Group provide the insights and guidance the Rhodes and Northern Green Homes were looking for. In fact, I think these best practices are relevant to any project. I can recall a number of new product launches that would have been helped immeasurably by people in the know wading through the Certio Group’s business plan template to reveal hidden secrets and brilliant insights.

So, be a Great Leader. Put these points on your checklist of things to consider so you too can be assured that you and your team have covered the bases. Also remember, use Project Pre-Check’s three building blocks covering the key stakeholder group, the decision management process, and Decision Framework best practices right up front, so you don’t overlook these key success factors. In fact, add those factors in Certio Group’s Business Plan Template to your own Decision Framework.

Thanks to everyone who has willingly shared their experiences for presentation in this blog. Everyone benefits. First-time contributors get a copy of one of my books. Readers get insights they can apply to their unique circumstances. So, if you have a project experience, good, bad and everything in between, send me the details, and we’ll chat. I’ll write it up and, when you’re happy with the results, Project Times will post it so others can learn from your insights. Thanks