Definitive Business Plan, Second Edition, The

Monitoring other objectives

The monthly budget report is regular mechanism for tracking performance against financial objectives. You can set up similar procedures for non-financial objectives. Most companies have regular reporting of sales, complaints, production output, staff turnover, a whole host of interesting information. These should include progress against objectives. The more solidly that they are quantified, the easier they are to track. Production is 3% above plan is more useful than we are very busy in the production department.

You will recall from Chapter 6 that my preference is for exception reporting. Tell me when it's going wrong, not when it's going right. Regular meetings tend to turn into dull affairs where small problems ...