Planning can lead to a great deal of success if applied with correct methods. Be it planning for your next big interview or exams all you gotta do is follow a plan that brings fruits to your efforts. One such plan that can guarantee you success is the 30 60 90 day plan.
The 30 60 90 day plan is just like what you probably see in the name. It is a detailed document of your intentions for the initial 30, 60, and 90 days. The plan involves documentation of minute details that deçide the overall performance of the individual, the metrics for measuring your success, the priorities, and end goals. The plan can successfully put you in a place, wherein you start to build a routine for success and can make what you initially planned a sure goal.
The process might seem confusing. Don’t worry we are here to solve all your queries with a thorough guide of how you can put your best foot forward to planning your goals. Stay tuned and make one of your plans along with us.
What is included in the 30 60 90 day plan?
Getting started with any plan can require a lot of effort. The same applies to this planning model. Before you get started with a plan you need to design a few prior templates and documentation to understand how you would carry out the entire plan. This could be an overwhelming process as not each chunk of 30 days would need you to define specific goals, checklists, priorities, and many other factors.
The factors included in the 30 60 90 day plan often induce various elements that make up for the success of the plan. The elements included are:
- To decide the goals you would like to achieve for every chunk of 30 days.
- The priorities to decide who gets the entire time or what needs your major focus and time.
- To determine a metric that can help you form a checklist. This helps you keep a track of success records, on what you should consider as a success in the long run.
- Finalizing a goal, a plan without a prior goal is a waste of time. This will push you forward to nothing. Make sure to have concrete goals that determine what you need to achieve at the end of the 30 60 90 day plan.
The template is laid out, but the question is what we should include in each section. Should we include a one-liner, sentence, or other tactics? Well, it depends upon you. But let us walk through each section of the template in more detail. Let’s get started. Grab your pens and start getting along with us.
- Focus
The focus section of the 30 60 90 day plan usually includes the learning process for the initial period of the plans. The focus of the plan should include a curated list of processes you need to complete during the plan. It should include the contributions you would like to make, execution, looking for changes, a status that needs to be a checklist, and other similar things.
For example:
If you plan on attending an interview for an executive position, the focus would generally include going through crucial interview topics, learning the concepts thoroughly, looking for mock questions, and understanding the concepts of the question.
The focus of an individual can change every month depending upon new goals, incomplete work, and many other criteria that can directly or indirectly influence the decisions of the plan.
- Goal
Set definite goals that influence your focus and that challenge you to complete the entire process of planning effectively. To make the entire process more accessible you can divide the list into smaller goals. A smaller goal allows the person to reach them quickly and formulate focus, checklist, and priorities accordingly. To start with, divide the goals section into three parts, learning goal, performance goal, and personal goal. Let us see more about the division on a deeper level.
Learning goal:
In this section look for the learning goals, you need to satisfy. Include the skills, tools, blogs, and other materials that you want to learn within the span of your plan. Write down a level of understanding you need for each and how well you want to absorb that skill and what you could do for the same.
Performance goal:
Set a performance goal to determine how your performance should look if checked by anyone. List down the things you want to achieve within the designated days, what tasks you would like to complete, and what changes you can make to improve the performance.
This section could be a little flexible as it will allow for greater achievement rather than working on stronger goals that do not leave room for growth.
Personal goals:
Personal goals determine how well you want to understand the concept outside the spectrum of books, or word knowledge. This can mostly include building relationships with professionals in a business environment. Networking can be an asset when it comes to achieving personal goals, it allows to foster the growth of business as well as set a mark for success. Make yourself trustworthy, credible, and incorporate things that can flaunt your skills.
- Priority
Knowing your priority can boost your performance on a significant level. Understand your priorities for every level of planning. Setting priorities will help you to look after the work in a structured manner and will avoid unwanted spending in time. The priorities mentioned should be a lot more specific and goal-oriented.
For developing a good business, your underlying priorities need to be networking, meeting clients, understanding the market, exploring trade paths, and so on. It will help boost the overall structure of the plan and give you a medium to effectively understand the problems, and other roadblocks.
- Metrics
Know how you would measure your success. Metrics are an uncompromising part of the plan. Whether you have started your plan or have reached the pinnacle of it you need a metric that allows you to keep a check on the success of the work you have carried out. Ask yourself two simple questions, how would I determine if the work is completed successfully? And secondly, what should it look like in the end. A clear idea about what is needed will spontaneously prompt you with the checklist you need.
How to make an effective 30 60 90 day plan?
Now that you know about the template that you need to follow, you would be stuck with the question of what we should decide about our goals and priorities. What should we consider of higher priority and what should we put as our metrics for follow-up of the work. The main question that you might ask yourself here is what if you focus on the wrong things if you write a wrong plan, to begin with.
Well, I understand it could be a bit overwhelming to go through the entire process, especially if you are a new bee and are looking forward to setting an example for many. So don’t worry we have got all your worries covered in this section. Let us discuss a few points that you could keep in mind and start your planning process smoothly.
- Question yourself.
The best way to plan anything out there is to question its existence. Well, this might seem a tad bit negative from the perspective of planning, but this could be your key to forming success stories. So start with questioning things surrounding the goal you want to achieve. The questions definitely won’t revolve around your capabilities but they would surely revolve around if you have the right skills.
Let’s break that down. When you are hired for a position, especially the ones that are of the higher executive level you would often find yourself stuck in a place wherein you are very apart from the culture used for working, the execution is different, applications differ, and so much more. Changing the entire system in such a situation can be a bit nonpractical. So question yourself here, does the listening system make sense and could work out, or is the change necessary?
If you are clear with your goals the next big question would be what you need to achieve in the 90 days planning process. Whether it is a base for the organization or something that leaves an impact on the employees. Ask questions to your subordinates about the changes they would like to see in the working process, understand their point of view, and get your work straight.
Questioning can be a great view to negate small-term plans that do not have any particular benefit.
- Understand your role
Before you start setting concrete plans for business or any execution, start with understanding your role. This starts with networking. Networking is the key to handling new jobs effectively as well as efficiently. Building relations inside the company allows you to know more about the people you are working for and the level of their expectations. Sometimes a project brief could not express the needs as clearly as the clients do, and this principle applies here as well. Know what you are working for.
When you enter a company for a new job in a certain position drag yourself out of your comfort zone and meet the following people,
- Managers
- Colleagues that belong to the same team
- External partñers who you will work in close association with.
- Internal partners from different departments that work in conjunction with your team.
- People who work under your guidance, if applicable.
- And anyone who directly relates to you at the workspace could be your tea partner as well.
Every meeting you face with these people will help you discover more about the company. Here we are again highlighting our first point, asking questions. Ask them about the company, work culture, structures, reporting, team management, and other follow-up questions. This will help you create a rope of learning that will keep you tied up close to the association’s demands. Knowing things will help you to formulate plans and decide for required changes in the long run.
- Think 3D
Thinking in 3D means to think from a 3-dimensional perspective. How do you view the task, how the person who assigned the task views it, and how does a third-person view the same. This helps in creating a big picture of the assigned goals. Understand if you are higher for a role of higher-level executive you are here to solve a particular set of problems that the organization faces. Know about the problem from all the perspectives we mentioned. This helps in curating a list of changes needed in the structure not through just one point of view.
Approaching a problem from multiple perspectives can give you the option to generate plans that suit the needs of the organization, bring changes, and not affect the overall quality of the work they produce. For roles that are not on such a high scale, know about your duties, responsibilities, and what you would be expected to do in a situation. Know things that determine your success and grab opportunities anywhere you find them. Determine your selling point and formulate plans that sell you the best in every situation.
- Be specific with your goals
Goals can play a significant role in determining whether you stay motivated throughout the process. But this does not mean setting unrealistic goals. Often we would set goals stating, ” Achieve the 100 targets in 30 days”, while this might sound easy in the paper but can severely have changes when done in real life. Rather go for diplomatic goals, ” Complete maximum target”. This helps you to set the maximum limit at the end of the work, which makes the goal rather achievable.
Goals can be disappointing if not met correctly, so set goals that allow flexibility. Apart from that go goals that are specific in time constraint, realistic, and that can provide you with a clear picture of where your priorities will lead you. A goal that does not go along with your priority can often disappoint a person. Set goals for which you can work. Be intuitive, and look for short-term and long-term success. It is not an easy task to determine what will happen in the future, but setting a prior goal on a long-term bias can push any individual to achieve that exact path with and without hindrances.
- Be open to change
Be open to change, enough emphasis can never be put on this point. Be flexible in your work, in priorities, goals, time-bound, and many other criteria. This allows the burgeoning of creativity and personal growth.
Don’t stress over dates mentioned on a piece of paper, planning is just a way to determine the workflow, and make it smoother and efficient. It is not an ultimatum. Be open to change wherever and whenever the situation demands. As individuals, we can often digress to different details, sometimes we even tend to take more time in completing a particular task on the list than intended. In such a situation, it would be fine if you go back and adjust your goals.
While adjusting your goals make sure you jot points wherein you state, what stopped you from achieving the goal you set. This will help you analyze the problem. Knowing the problem will eventually lead to a solution and next time you set goals or encounter a similar problem you can easily tackle it.
If you are someone on the executive level, try for management tools that can help you perform analysis on a different basis. This can profoundly improve the process of planning as well as the follow-up.
- Get your metrics right
Metrics determine whether your plan is successful or not. But what if you set the wrong metrics or a completely irrelevant matrix. Ok, these could be extreme cases. But one thing that could surely help you, in any case, is determining measurable metrics that follow patterns or numbers.
Go for numbers, like profit percent, revenue, approved numbers, clients, and others. In some cases, the metrics could be qualitative, but try to determine them. In terms of quantity, this helps with better visualization and realization of the data.
Another significant point here is, your metrics can change for every chunk of 30 days depending upon the work, the process, organization, and others. Understand the goal you are achieving for the particular day and then manipulate your metrics accordingly.
Situations wherein you could use a 30 60 90 day plan.
30 60 90 plan can be used by anyone, depending upon the complexity of the job and the situation of an individual the structure of the plan can differ. It can be used by students preparing for exams, interviews, new jobs, on the executive level to determine the work, and many others.
Though the plan can be drafted for any situation many people use them for two major reasons.
- Interview
- New job
- Interview
Interviews especially on the executive level position or anywhere in between where you would be required to work for organizations management can ask for a 30 60 90 day plan. Many interviewers prefer to understand the thought process of the individuals present in the interview. A sample plan can help them understand how you view the challenges of the company, the solutions you bring, and your way of tackling an issue.
It helps them to understand how well versed you are with your role and what makes you a good candidate. Include points in the plan that show how you can contribute to the organization and learn alongside to improve and maintain your personal growth. This is the best combination for any plan.
If you are not interviewing for one such position, and are looking for junior roles you can also come up with a plan that determines how you will work once you get started in a certain organization. Come up with plans that help you in the journey. Be proactive and start taking charge of the work.
As a complete newbie your plans could include:
- Learning tasks from the existing records.
- Managing tasks on your own and determining your work comfort.
- Initiating changes and ideas that could positively affect the organization.
- New job
If you are starting a new job in any position come up with a 30 60 90 day plan for yourself. The plan helps you determine your course of action for the initial days of the work and helps you to pave the path through the struggles. As a new employee, you could work with several colleagues and understand the work culture, and the roles and responsibilities expected from the organization.
Gather information that can put you on a pedestal and help everyone around you understand how proactive you are with work. Get regular feedback from managers, read all the available records, data, and any other file available to you in the organization’s archive. Look at the way things work, this will probably help you define your actions for a much longer time than just 90 days.
Determining a plan in the initial period can also help you understand your motivations, strengths, and skills. This in turn allows you to perform at full capability and explore the uniqueness you can bring to the role. It will also determine the initiatives you take during the period by aiding your confidence to achieve more.
To learn, contribute, and initiate. The game plan will never fail you in your efforts.
Conclusion
The entire planning may sound a bit overwhelming. But trust the process and believe in yourself. That’s all you need to do. If you get stuck anywhere, follow the guide and learn more about the process.
In the end, be constructive about the entire process. Not all plans are successful, but each plan can bring value to your knowledge and work. So keep the pace up and understand your priorities, goals, and focus. Get yourself a checklist that determines your success. Be flexible, change, be intuitive, learn, process, and bring out the best results.
