Business plans should be “practical guides”, bringing together the daily operational activities of the business with the benefits it delivers to its people, customers, investors and communities, and ultimately it should clarify the reasons for it to exist. While most business plans do not help companies to achieve their potential, there now is a new planning tool available to help managers with achieving great results.
Flow Canvas™ is a business planning tool that is as easy to use for developing the overall business strategy, as it is for planning and implementing specific work activities. It is of great help to managers because it follows a meaningful planning process, which delivers a documented depiction of the business – a “picture” they can use in maintaining organisational consistency, while achieving results with productive teams of inspired people.
What is the Canvas?
Think of business planning like artists would when setting out to create great paintings – they start with a clean canvas and a vision of what it is they would like to express. Then, within the confines of the canvas, they produce something of dazzling attraction that connects with the world out there, it gets people to respond and it adds value to their lives. The same applies to business planning where you create a “picture” of a business proposition that will add value to the lives of those who respond.
Flow Canvas™ provides a bit more structure to the picture/painting than an artist would – the “planning canvas” is divided into 9 areas, with each devoted to a specific question. In answering all 9 questions, you complete the full picture of your business on a single page. The result is displayed on a 1-page plan, which everyone in the business can refer to in guiding their daily work activities. They can all see what the business is setting out to achieve and how they fit into the picture.
How Flow Canvas™ works
Flow Canvas™ is based on three important principles.
Firstly, as with the surface of a canvas for painting, you always have to cover the full extent of the two spacial dimensions – height (top-bottom) and width (left-right).
On the Flow Canvas™ it is called the Planning Polarities, which are organised as follows:
- Top-bottom: At the top of the canvas you answer questions oriented towards Thinking & Visualisation (create focussed benefits, innovate within your business idea, improve the way things are done), while the bottom is oriented towards Action & Manifestation of ideas (produce value, deliver your product or service, transact and make deals).
- Left-right: On the right-side of the canvas you address questions oriented towards Differentiation & Visibility (be distinct and congruent, connect with the people you’re meant to serve, increase your desirability), while the left-hand side is oriented towards Integration & Efficiency (utilise resource efficiently, lead/govern sustainably, refine what you do).
Secondly, as proven in nature, working in a cycle is the most efficient and logical way of achieving results. There must be “flow” within a cycle so that progress unfolds evenly from the one stage to the next, without “bottlenecks” or “leakage”. It is called the Flow Cycle.
Thirdly, when a cycle is completed, it leads to a new cycle, so that progress is achieved through learning from what was concluded, thus achieving upward movement, forming a rising spiral of growth. The cycle revolves around the centre of the business canvas, from where it moves up and clockwise around until it reaches the top again, ready to proceed to the next cycle. This growth path is called the Spiral of Intention since it revolves around the central question of why the business exists – its “purpose” or “intention” – with each new cycle building on the previous.
Using Flow Canvas™ as Planning Tool
Flow Canvas™ is a business planning tool based on answering 9 questions. It is as easy to apply to both high-level strategic planning, on the one hand, and specific activities, on the other hand. You can ask the questions about the business as a whole, or you can apply it to a project, or even a specific task.
The starting point is the business’ reason for existence – its Purpose – which is the glue that keeps all the complexities of the business together. A clearly defined Purpose shapes the business culture, its services/products, and its relationships with customers, employees and investors – in fact every aspect of the business’ DNA.
The other 8 questions follow the Flow Cycle through the Planning Polarities, so that all the dimensions of the business are addressed.
How you can benefit
In helping our clients to use the Flow Canvas as a planning tool, we at Flow Finders International have been able to put many business and organisations on a path towards achieving great results, while working towards their central purpose.
The Flow Canvas Intensive is a very effective way of applying this tool to your situation. For only R4 487 we’ll spend a day with you to complete your own plan and we’ll help you during the following weeks to refine the plan so that you can achieve good results, based on a well-defined plan.
The Questions To Answer
On the canvas, the core question of Purpose is depicted in red. The answer to this question does normally not shift much over the medium-term. It is lasting! It is not at the centre of the canvas without reason – it has a direct and ongoing influence on all the other questions.
The core question is:
Why does your business exist?
When the core question is clearly answered in the planning process, you can move on to what is called the 4 primary questions, indicated in yellow. In answering these questions it is best to start with clarifying your business idea or focussed niche, based on (and as a direct expression of) the answer to the core question. Then move on to when and where you’ll deliver value. This will unlock clues as to who the customers are you’re meant to serve and how you’ll contribute to ecological sustainability and create ongoing profitability.
The 4 primary questions are:
What gives you a unique focus within your niche?
When and where do you deliver value to whom?
Who are the ‘fans’ you connect with and where are they?
How do you lead/govern and sustain profits?
With the primary questions answered you can move onto the secondary questions, indicated in green. The secondary answers are “bridges”, connecting the primary answers with each other.
The 4 secondary questions are:
What are you noticed and remembered by?
What are the promises your ‘fans’ respond to?
How do you organise your teams, systems and money?
How & when do you measure your performance?
Interestingly, it is common for the 9 questions to influence each other during planning. As a result, the process of answering the questions remains dynamic – when a new question is answered, it is important to revisit the previous answers to see if the newly gained insights do not influence the previous answers to such an extent that they have to be refined or changed.
There are of course a whole lot of sub-questions tied up in each of these questions, which can best be dealt with within specific teams in the business for providing detailed answers. However, the 1-page Flow Canvas™ becomes a very handy “summary” of what the business really is about!
I learned how to use flow to engage and challenge employees.
