Creativity and Focus in the Planning Process

So, we just finished our 2010 budget. As an organization, it was an incredibly productive experience.  One of the really great things was the process we used: A period of creativity and possibilities followed by a period of focus and tough choices

Start with divergence.  What should we do next year?  Increase our breadth? Increase or depth? Launch a new product line? Improve the current product line? Focus on customer loyalty? Focus on new customers?  Fund some R&D cases?  Engage with some expert consultants on new ideas?  Expand our development group? Expand our customer service?  Move towards inside sales? Move towards outside sales?

End with convergence. After about a month of brainstorming and fleshing out ideas, we ended up with maybe 8 or 9 really great ways to grow the business.  Now the hard part began.  Discussing and refining and collecting data and sifting options and arguing and the entire team coming to agreement on the plans. Then putting funding numbers behind things and further discussing and refining and sifting options. 

In the end, we have 2 or 3 really well thought out initiatives and enough resources to capitalize on.  I'm stoked about 2010. We're gonna crush it.