During my years as a senior account manager and as an independent consultant, I have always encountered opposing views about planning and the just-doing-it attitude for small to big projects either from my superiors, team members or colleagues.  There would be those who would act on an idea as it comes out from their minds and those who would take a moment to analyze and plan first before taking action.  The former are typically those who want to take advantage of opportunities presented, more into adventure and the thrill of the now, and the latter are typically those who want to calculate risks before moving forward towards the goal.

Planning and starting a business is as project planning and implementation but on a bigger, grandeur way as starting a business is ownership, with all its assets and liabilities.

Looking at the effect on planning on entrepreneurship and business start-up, I'd like to share with you an excerpt from a report completed by Mr. Jianwen Liao , Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship from Illinois Institute of Technology, and Mr. William B. Gartner, Spiro Professor of Entrepreneurial Leadership from Clemson University, under contract by the Small Business Administration entitled "Are Planners Doers? Pre-Venture Planning and the Start-Up Behaviors of Entrepreneurs" published in the SBA Office of Advocacy: Small Business Research Summary on February 2009.

Messrs Liao and Gartner wrote: "There are conflicting views on whether the process of pre-venture planning is beneficial to the success of starting new ventures. Some researchers suggest that pre-venture planning enables entrepreneurs to surface their assumptions about factors leading to success, reduces delays in implementing critical activities, and helps them communicate their vision to others.  Others suggest, however, that planning is a distraction from the real work of creating and building a new enterprise. Establishing the value of pre-venture planning may be important to nascent entrepreneurs."

 "The activity of business planning, and the level of formality of the business plan (i.e., whether the plan was written, informally written, or existing only in thought) does not, as a main effect, influence the rate at which entrepreneurs engage in more activities, their tendency to concentrate activities in a short period of time, or the overall timing of other startup activities. Early planning, however, appears to an impetus for early action."

The highlights of the report are noted here in verbatim:

• Nascent entrepreneurs tend to show a spurt of activities when they have a formal business plan which is completed early in the start-up process. In contrast, nascent entrepreneurs seem to have a steady pace of start-up activities when they complete a formal business plan at a later stage in the venture creation process.
• There is a significant effect regarding the timing of business planning (early or late in the start-up process) on start-up activities.
• Entrepreneurs who engage in business planning significantly influence the rate of start-up activities; they are likely to accomplish more start-up activities in a given period of time than entrepreneurs who do not plan. Also, entrepreneurs who complete a formal plan early are more likely to concentrate their start-up efforts early in the start-up process, rather than later.
• Nascent entrepreneurs who generated informal or unwritten plans late in the start-up process are significantly more likely to complete start-up activities late in the start-up process and to concentrate them near the end of the process.

 They ended their full report with this: “Entrepreneurs who planned and wrote formal business plans were more likely to create a new business than others. Planning matters!”

I, personally, favor planning with research, analysis and understanding over impromptu or spur-of-the-moment actions for most, if not all, my endeavors all because I’d like to know where I am headed and be ready for any obstacles or unsatisfactory outcomes along the way.  The end result is important but more than that, I believe the process is the key to successful gains.  

Planning do matter. Unfortunately, in with all the fast-track methods and economic uncertainties, this undertaking come to most as an afterthought.  But then again, it all comes down to personal choices in action and behavior.  I hope good choices will be made, one that has the best interest and long-term value to the company and all those involved.

For more information about the report cited in the article, please go to www.sba.gov.