In the movie "The Godfather" Tom Hagen addresses the Don before their meeting where the Don is going to be asked to finance the drug business. The Don asks Tom what he thinks. Tom lays out a well-reasoned strategic thought process as to why the Corleone family should get into the drug business. He tells the Don that not to be in the business will put their family business in jeopardy, "... not now, but ten years from now!"

Ten years was a reasonable planning horizon in 1946!  When Stephen Tweed started strategic planning, much of the focus was on a five-year planning cycle.  We thought that five years was a reasonable planning horizon.

Today much of what we know about customers, products and markets can change within two years, or even less.

With the world changing so fast how can we afford not to plan? But the truth is, we do not put off the decision to plan for tomorrow but rather we decide not to plan. The act of not deciding is a decision. We find comfort in what has made us successful. The great paradox is that nothing in business could be riskier.

A failure to plan is a plan to fail. With change happening in every sector of business today at a pace like at no time in history, you are responsible for charting your own destiny. At the end of the day, business planning is charting your own destiny

Our businesses need big, audacious goals. We need to know where we are going. As Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People says, "Begin with the end in mind."

There are two important questions to ask yourself.  What are my opportunities? And what can I do with that opportunity? While working within a universe of "big ideas" is interesting (and I believe you must get out of your comfort zone) we have to keep our audacious goals grounded in reality of our opportunities.

Envision, for a moment, climbing a mountain. You can easily see the peak and you know where you are headed. That is your GOAL. You also see the immediate trail ahead of you. What you do not know, and cannot really know, is all the twists and turns in the trial that you'll find along the way.

In business planning, stay focused on the peak, and stay adaptable to the things you find along the way on the trail.  Many planning efforts stall because planners attempted to account for all the possibilities that might occur along the way, and plan for each of them in advance. You then become enslaved in pointless detail that is of no material value in reaching the peak. These efforts find themselves building scenarios of what might happen. Don't do it. If you have the urge to do it, quit the process and go fishing or to the mall instead - it will be more rewarding.

That is not to suggest you don't need structure and discipline in the process. Without structure you won't get very much done.  Don't try to anticipate and plan for more than you have reasonable information to plan with, because chances are it will change dramatically before you get there!