October 2026
Make Planning a Regular Habit
The greatest challenge may be establishing a routine and sticking with it. A practical approach is to schedule a monthly planning meeting involving the owner and, where appropriate, key sales, production and administrative personnel. It need not be lengthy, but it should be treated as an important business commitment rather than something to fit in when time permits.
Keep the discussion focused on three questions: What has changed? What could happen next? What should we do about it?
A simple one-page plan can record three priorities for the next 90 days, the actions required, who is responsible and when progress will be reviewed. Those priorities might include reducing excessive overtime, improving pallet recovery rates, strengthening a customer relationship or preparing for an equipment purchase. Selecting only a few priorities can help ensure that planning leads to action rather than an ever-growing list of good intentions.
The following month's meeting should begin by reviewing those commitments before moving on to new issues. Some initiatives will be completed, others will require more time, and a few may no longer make sense as conditions change. Over time, these regular reviews can also improve the quality of the company's forecasts as managers compare what they expected with what actually occurred.
Planning cannot eliminate uncertainty, and even the best forecasts will sometimes be wrong. Regular reviews allow a business to adjust its assumptions and decisions as new information becomes available. For a smaller pallet operation, that may be the most practical approach to strategic planning: understanding the business, anticipating a few possible outcomes and making deliberate decisions about what to do next.
WPM