No business plan survives contact with reality. The first 100 days of a turnaround generate data that lets you segment markets and simplify operations fast. Repeat a four-phase cycle—segment, simplify, zero up, grow—throughout the year, each round sharpening your focus and predictions.
The butterfly effect means your business plan will never be perfect. Deal with it. For business leaders, the first 100 days of an effort to earn the right to grow will yield an abundance of data that can be used to guide initial initiatives from segmentation and simplification. But given the urgency of a company in need of a turnaround and the limitations of short-term data, the numbers will likely be too gross to create an optimal predictive guidance. Only repeat iterations of the 4-phase cycle of segment, simplify, zero up, and grow Throughout the first full year of the deployment of the new business plan will enable executives to tune the focus on the critical few in the business more precisely and productively. As the iterations are repeated throughout the full span of the business plan, the focus will become sharper and sharper, the predictions more and more accurate. Will you eventually find perfection? No, but you will be getting warmer all the time.
