The next 90 days will arguably determine the success of your firm for the next year.
This is the time to implement changes and build consensus and education around them. There is a reason why the big four firms have their fiscal year ends in summer and fall, and it is so that the annual planning process aligns opposite of their client workload.
Let’s talk about the annual cycle of a firm for a minute.
We know that for compliance departments such as assurance and tax, the busy season starts in January and can run all the way through to June.
Then, accountants go on vacation, golf, go to cottages and in general reacquaint themselves with their families. Much like the workload is heavily concentrated in those first six months of the year, the time off is heavily concentrated in July and August. Essentially that leaves four months of the year, three if you exclude a few weeks leading up to the December holidays.
So that means there are 90 days to cram in all the initiatives to advance the firm. The work done in these 90 days is the best chance to meaningfully implement improvements needed to make the upcoming six months of the busy season as effective as possible.
So here are some tips to make the most out of these 90 days.
- Have a start-stop-continue meeting - ideally this would have been done in the moment at the end of busy season when it is still fresh in your mind - but, running a session with a cross-section of team members by level and department to get their feedback on the last year and ideate for improvement would be valuable. I like this start-stop-continue framework in order to capture this thinking.
- Tie in the quantitative data on your firm's performance. Look at performance and KPIs of the firm for the last year. What metrics worked and which ones did not? Now use this info to vet and prioritize feedback from the start-stop-continue meeting in order to tie firm outcomes to team feedback.
- Assess your tech stack for any redundancies or gaps. The number of times firms have failed to implement a new technology is staggering. It is most often because it is put into place in response to problems or challenges that are occurring in the moment which does not allow for adequate planning and training of the team. By using the next 90 days to identify new technology that can make the team more efficient in its busiest times, or add higher margin and tech enabled revenue, you can improve key metrics like client fees per professional.
- Create an action plan based on this, which includes a critical path to achieving each area, improvement or opportunity, including who will be responsible and deadlines to achieve.
- Don’t forget training and development of the team. It is so critical in all of this planning to ensure adequate time and resources are put towards educating the team on any new initiatives, using either real client work examples, or case style learning to make it as applicable as possible.
- Monitor progress against your improvement plans weekly, ensure open and visible communication with the management team, and perhaps all staff depending on the size and engagement of the firm.
So, now is the time to make a change! If you do, you will be a lot happier on your vacation next year 😎
Author: Dave Bunce, CPA, CA
