Page 127 - Business Plans that Work A Guide for Small Business

118 • Business Plans that Work

to take. As you go through the marketing plan and the operations plan,
you should be able to fill in more details that need to happen during
your launch phase. Tim DeMello, serial founder of Wall Street Games and
Streamline, shared with students when he visited Babson College a useful
exercise that he uses to identify all the necessary actions that need to be
taken. Tim had every member of his founding team sit in a room with
flip chart sheets taped to the walls. The team members then went around
the room writing down actions. In a second cycle they added detailed ac-
tions that supported the major actions identified in the first round. They
continued in this manner until they exhausted new action items. Then the
actions were organized along a timeline, and responsibilities were given to
the appropriate team members. Although we don’t recommend showing
that level of detail in your development timeline, the deep learning that
you gain by going through the process will be invaluable and will help
you make sound decisions going forward.