Today, you stand at the precipice of transformative change, ready to revolutionize how you approach planning in your practice. The paradigm of annual planning, despite its traditional comfort, is akin to an old cocoon—restrictive and not designed to accommodate growth.

When you consider your aspirations, you might have found yourself, like countless others, formulating plans at the end of the year, contemplating the course of the upcoming twelve months. However, this conventional strategy paints a paradox—while a year can be overwhelmingly long for predictability, it is astonishingly short for realising significant accomplishments.

The echoes of 2019’s plans ring loud. How many of those meticulously crafted strategies truly unfolded as you envisioned over a year? Precious few, no doubt.

Moreover, monumental change requires a canvas larger than a single year. Ponder the transformations that have shaped your business and your life—they span years, not mere months.

What’s more, annual planning is often an exercise in overly enthusiastic optimism. Especially when it happens in December—perhaps the most misguided time to plan.

Planning in December is as ill-advised as grocery shopping on an empty stomach. It’s time to ensure our annual planning is more than just another fleeting New Year’s resolution.

In the spirit of breaking free from constraints and harnessing limitless potential, I encourage you to embrace a novel planning strategy—a three-year planning cycle. It’s a stretch vast enough to house meaningful growth yet not so distant to cloud our vision or stifle our imagination. To keep this inspiring journey manageable, we break down these three-year cycles into twelve 90-day periods, executed in quarterly sprints – a 12-Quarter Plan.

Imagine this: in three years, you can transform your practice in ways both achievable and awe-inspiring. This journey doesn’t start tomorrow—it starts today. To embark on this adventure, I present to you six steps that will aid you in crafting an inspiring three-year growth plan to guide your practice’s strategic quarterly sprints:

1. Identify Your Launch Pad:

Assess your current financial position truthfully and accurately. Be it a general estimate of sales and net profits, a look back at the last year, or an annual run-rate based on your typical month, ensure the representation is genuine, neither sandbagging nor showcasing an unusually successful month.

2. Chart Your 3-Year Ascent:

Set your sights on known benchmarks, whether it’s the “Rapid Growth” common in the early years of a practice or the “Steady Growth” seen in more mature ones. Strive for the zenith of “Top-to-Bottom,” where your top-line revenue becomes your bottom-line profit in three years—a 26% annual increase or a 6% quarterly hike.

3. Explore Straight-Line Trajectories:

Use a spreadsheet to plot a hypothetical linear growth trajectory, but remember, the journey to success is rarely a straight line.

4. Write Your “Real” Projections:

Base these on your ability to grow over time, your seasonal rhythms, and your availability.

5. Craft a “How We Get There” Blueprint:

This is where you ask yourself what needs to evolve in your practice today to achieve your future growth targets.

6. Track Progress, Pivot Monthly and Adjust Quarterly:

Finally, regularly ask yourself if any significant changes in your practice, industry, or the economy necessitate changes to your 12-Quarter Plan.

With these steps in mind, work with your leadership team to draft a 12-Quarter Plan, filling in the “Projected” column for at least the next four quarters. Ponder over what must be true for the projections to materialize, and bring this thinking to the HWGT Plan tab. Then, set the date and gather your team for your next Quarterly Sprint Planning Session.

Understand this: the three-year growth plan is about something other than awaiting the onset of a new year or reducing your planning to a forgotten resolution. It’s about anchoring your dreams in tangible, ambitious goals that consider the unpredictability of business and life.

By focusing on a three-year horizon—divided into manageable 90-day chunks—your practice will become a nimble ship, swiftly adjusting its sails in response to the changing winds of business trends and economic shifts. Instead of an annual check-in, you’ll have a monthly review with a company score to gauge your progress, offering you the flexibility to course-correct if required.

Yes, it might feel daunting initially, stepping away from familiar shores to embrace the unknown waters of this innovative approach to planning. But remember, the most beautiful pearls lie beneath the deepest waters. By breaking down this massive task into these steps, you’ll find that the seemingly insurmountable mountain becomes a journey of a thousand exciting steps.

Believe in the transformation that your practice can undergo in three years with a meticulously crafted and executed growth plan, one that is as adaptable as it is ambitious. All it takes is a commitment to the journey and a mindset open to innovative strategies. Through these, you’ll discover a path of flexibility, response, and success in reaching your growth targets. A path that marries long-term vision with short-term adaptability, effectively propelling your practice into a future of sustainable growth and accomplishment.

In conclusion, setting and realizing growth targets should be something other than an exercise in futility or frustration. It’s time to let go of the constricting annual planning model and embrace a strategy that doesn’t just ensure your practice’s survival but powers its thriving growth. Start your three-year cycle planning today, and unlock the breathtaking potential your practice holds. Remember, the future is a canvas of limitless possibilities—it’s time you wield the brush of ambition and paint your masterpiece.

As part of this transformative journey, we invite you to be inspired by fellow surgeons’ real-life success stories who’ve benefited from 12Q planning and access our suite of tools and resources designed to help implement your 12Q Plan effectively. By partnering with us, you gain a community and resources to support and propel your practice to new heights. Let’s work together to turn your aspirations into reality.