Dear small business owner, June is here. We are almost half way through the year. Look back at the resolutions you made in January. Are you on track?

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Dear small business owner,

June is here. We are almost half way through the year. Look back at the resolutions you made in January. Are you on track? Do you need to make adjustments? Now is a good time to set the stage for the next half of the year. In this newsletter I’m going to talk about a few ways to make planning simple and explain why it is important to your business.

Here we go:

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PLANNING

Failing to plan is planning to fail, is a catch phrase that is especially relevant for small businesses. Most small business owners are so busy they don’t have any time to plan; at least they think they don’t. Business planning is critical. You need to know what you are doing ahead of time so you don’t miss any opportunities, or fall into a cash-flow crisis.

Aligning your tactics to your strategies is a recipe for success. And It’s not hard, especially if you use the right resources. At NewPath Consulting, we use a strategic and tactical goal setting template with our customers. This helps define goals and identify potential scheduling opportunities or challenges.

There are many tools and services that are small business friendly. Planning with an agile approach is a perfect fit for a small business, and our template endorses this approach on the monthly tactics worksheet.

Scheduling an hour per month to review the plan is all that it takes to keep objectives top of mind, acknowledge accomplishments and review obstacles and challenges.

Plan the work, and work the plan - this is a fundamental principle in any small business. It is simple and allows for constant improvement.

The diagram below shows a 4-step sprint process that takes creative and repetitive, tasks and addresses quality, obstacles and calendaring issues that get captured in an action plan. The sprint results in documentation, tests, working software and procedures. Customer input is sought during the reflection and learning stage of the sprint.

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Sprint example

Sprint 1 – Design wireframe of a website to test various customer flows through the site.
Sprint 2 - Address 3-4 of the basic uses cases
Sprint 3 – Complete remainder of use cases for the site
Sprint 4 – Review meeting with customer and prioritize tasks for sprint 5
Sprint 5 – Implement tasks from sprint 4

Each sprint can be a month or a week, it all depends on your work capacity and capabilities.

Cloud tools enable steady and continuous implementation sprints because of their flexibility to quickly implement changes and improvements without coding.

Here’s a template of a spreadsheet that you can adapt and use.

Next Month: Orchestration

CHECK OUT OUR BLOG!

On May 19th, NewPath and Formstack held a joint webinar talking about the transforming power of online forms. Check out our followup blog for a direct link to the webinar recording and a detailed Q&A inspired by actual questions posed during the webinar.

UPCOMING EVENTS

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WordPress Toronto North Edition

This is a meetup for WordPress users to share and learn from each other.

Tell us about your last WordPress project, completed or in progress. What surprised you? What delighted you? What made your hair go grey?

Monday, June 20, 2016
3:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Eyelash Canada
16 Orfus Rd. unit 205,
North York, ON

Transform Your Business into a Digital Workplace

Ever wonder what cloud solutions can really do? From attracting new costumers online to accelerating business innovation, cloud software can help your business be as effective as can be.

Join us for an informative workshop that will lead you through the many benefits that cloud based systems can offer you and your business.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016
9:30 AM TO 11:30 AM

Business Advisory Centre Durham
3000 Garden Street Suite 200
Whitby, ON L1R 2G6

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Innovation Factory Lunch n' Learn

Innovation Factory (iF) is a not-for-profit innovation center that helps people transform their ideas into businesses, and take established businesses to the next level.

During Lunch n' Learn you will have the opportunity to network & learn about the power of a digital workplace.To sweeten the deal a complementary lunch will be provided!

Tuesday, June 28, 2016
11:30 AM to 2:00 PM

175 Longwood Rd S,
Hamilton, ON L8P 0A1

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For more information on these events visit our events page

Wishing you continued business success.

bio Alex Sirota 04a 320x180 c

Alex Sirota
Director, NewPath Consulting
(888) 781-2539

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