Start your EOFY review process

This article first appeared May 24, 2011.

The end of the financial year is a busy, busy period. There are tax matters to attend to, budgets to be prepared, sales deals to be closed and (if you’re lucky) a nice party at the end of it all.

But while planning for the year ahead is a focus at this time, it’s also crucial to conduct some sort of review of the year just gone.

This can be as formal or as informal as you like (a strategy session or a long lunch?) and as inclusive as you decide (the whole team or just the key decision-makers?) but it needs to be done.

Some things to flag when you send out the invitation are:

• Have we met our key financial targets? If not, do we understand why?
• Have we met non-financial targets? If not, why?
• How accurate was our budgeting? How can we improve it?
• Has our value proposition changed? Should it?
• Do we need new skills in the business?
• What five things did we do well?
• What five things could we have done better?

Thinking about this stuff well before the meeting is important to ensure you actually come out of the meeting with results, so start the preparation process right now.

Get it done – today!