The One Page Business Plan®, Fact or Fiction

In the legal profession it is a joke that if you can get a file to be over one inch thick that it will start contradicting itself. Is that they way your most important document in your organization should be constructed? People may look at The One Page Business plan as a gadget type planning instrument or a simplified version of a real business plan. Oh contrary, what it actually does is forces you to write using simple but powerful language. No vague statements here, it wastes too much space.
The One Page Business Plan is not meant to be a full blown instrument that a bank will accept for funding or is it? If used, they will certainly ask for more, but it will be the document that determines if you will get the funding. This is the page that sells them! The basic premise of the plan: Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies and actions is pretty rudiment to any plan. It has the great ability to link objectives to strategies to actions and to your vision and mission, yes, all on One Page. But don’t all plans do that, more completely and in much greater detail? They try, but does anyone use them or even read them after completing them. The basic difference is the importance of putting your thoughts into concise language and of course getting it all on one page does exactly that.
I use the One Page Business Plan over and over again as a recurring planning instrument for proposals, marketing, performance and project planning. However, I believe the strength of the plan is in the constant use of it. Once people get accustomed to a certain planning process it can be used over and over again creating a large amount of clarity through an organization. And in today’s world, there is not anything that we compete on more than clarity.