Explain how the business you own today can support the ownership future you want.
A hire might free your time while reducing distributions. A growth project might build value while absorbing cash. Your Value Growth Plan™ explains which choices you are making, what supports them and why the sequence fits your goals.
The written plan lives in The Plan, one of the four parts of your Owner’s Playbook. It connects the Scorecard, Roadmap, annual North Star and 90-Day Game Plan to the numbers and people needed to carry them out.
Begin with the goals and work you already have
Open the Owner’s Scorecard. Confirm the dates and what you want from Time, Cash Flow and Wealth. Bring forward the three lenses of value, keeping your goals separate from the supported estimate of what the business could provide.
Then use the Roadmap to examine all 27 milestones. Suitable work that existed before iBD counts when it meets the current requirements. Keep the evidence, date and unreviewed questions beside your chosen scores. The Velocity Score totals installation across the system, up to 81 after a complete review. It does not establish your company’s value or your confidence in the plan.
A low score identifies work to investigate. Compare it with your goals, available people and cash, the consequence of delay and the capabilities other work depends on. The lowest number does not automatically choose the quarter.
Give this year a clear direction
The two-page iBD North Star™ connects your annual ownership goals to business priorities. Its front carries Time, Cash Flow, Wealth and the valuation picture. Its back carries Roadmap scores and four intended quarterly priorities. Label the actual years, dates and whether a number is a goal, result or forecast.
Time describes a typical week totaling 168 hours, including sleep. Cash flow covers a stated period. Wealth is a value at a date. Keep gross salary and after-tax distributions distinguishable; an after-tax total needs a supported take-home-pay conversion. Do not add unlike amounts simply because they sit next to each other on a worksheet.
The financial model and budget test the annual goals. A forecast below the target exposes a choice about timing, resources, work or the goal itself. Record the decision rather than quietly lowering the target. Later quarterly priorities can develop as you learn more; they need not be four unrelated projects.
Build your next 90-Day Game Plan
Choose the One Thing that most helps the year’s ownership direction. Explain the root problem and what should be different by day 90. “Build a model” names a project. “We need to understand what the business can safely distribute” explains why the work matters.
Use the existing one-page Game Plan or the same fields in your current planning record:
| Field | What to establish |
|---|---|
| Quarter, dates and plan lead | The period and person coordinating the work. |
| One Thing and related milestone | The priority, reason for choosing it and result needed at day 90. |
| Three outcomes | An observable result, what counts as done, responsible person and due date for each. |
| Support and obstacles | Time, cash, authority, help and dependencies, plus what you are postponing. |
| M1, M2 and M3 | The quarter’s monthly review updates. Leave them open until the reviews happen. |
Agree the responsibility with each person. Writing a name does not establish their capacity or acceptance. Keep the adoption decision and next review date in the dated quarterly record. The team’s normal operating system can manage the detailed tasks.
For a hypothetical finance priority, the three outcomes might be supported historical information, a reviewed connected model and an actual monthly update used in an ownership review. The relevant milestone’s checklist still governs its completion. One quarter can make useful progress without satisfying a capability that requires longer evidence.
Write the explanation from those choices
Use your current company plan or a narrative organized around four questions. There is no required page count or need to rewrite the same answers in several formats.
| Question | What the reader should understand |
|---|---|
| Where have we been? | The business, relevant turning points and what you want to preserve. |
| Where are we now? | How the company earns money, current evidence and dependence on you. |
| Where do I want to go? | Dated five-year ownership goals, annual direction and the business’s role beside other assets. |
| How will we get there? | The chosen sequence, immediate quarter, people, resources and trade-offs. |
Identify who carries CEO, CRO, CFO and COO responsibilities today, even when several belong to one person. Link to the same financial support and planning instruments. Keep what you want, what the forecast supports and what you have adopted distinguishable. For a material open assumption, name its present treatment, responsible person and return date.
Your coach or AI can assemble existing answers and help identify a missing explanation. Read the actual narrative and confirm that the commitments are yours. A polished document cannot resolve an unsupported funding gap.
Use the plan for a real ownership choice
Imagine you want fewer finance responsibilities and unchanged personal cash flow. A finance hire could help with time, but the forecast needs to show its effect on earnings, cash and distributions. The plan might sequence reliable reporting before the hire, with a clear cash condition for proceeding.
That example explains the reasoning. For completion, use your own plan for an actual decision: hire, invest, distribute, transfer responsibility, change priority or continue for a supported reason. Record the evidence, consequence for the plan, person responsible and next review. Deferring with conditions can be a sound decision.
Complete the six owner actions
A first usable plan can reach Installed while later capabilities are still being developed. The six actions require a connected, adopted plan and real use. The full requirements are below.
Open the six actions and their completion requirements
1. Confirm your Owner’s Scorecard goals
Open the original Scorecard and its Time, Cash Flow and Wealth support. Confirm the goal dates and current position; use the three valuation lenses from Module 2 to explain your ownership direction. Keep goals separate from estimates.
Question to work through: What do you want the business to make possible, and what would change your decision to keep or sell it?
What shows it is complete: Current Scorecard, supporting exercises and dated valuation context; ownership direction and a reconsideration trigger.
2. Complete your Owner’s Roadmap assessment
Review the 27 milestones using their evidence. Record what is known and what remains unreviewed; choose and save your own scores. Use the Roadmap to identify constraints and dependencies that matter to your goals.
Question to work through: What is preventing progress toward your goals, and what evidence supports that choice?
What shows it is complete: Dated Roadmap assessment, evidence and gaps, plus the reason for the priority. Do not infer a score from missing files.
3. Complete this year’s North Star
Complete the existing North Star with dated annual Time, Cash Flow and Wealth targets, the valuation snapshot and specific success statements. Compare the goals with your financial plan and the people needed to deliver them.
Question to work through: What must be true at year-end, and what does the current financial plan say you can fund?
What shows it is complete: Filled North Star; identified budget/forecast version; any material funding or capacity gap, its present treatment, responsible person and decision date. A target is not an approved forecast.
4. Build your next 90-Day Game Plan
Choose one priority that supports the year. Fill the existing Game Plan: root problem, intended result, three concrete outcomes, responsible people, dates and likely obstacles. Name what you are postponing.
Question to work through: Why this work now, what will be different in 90 days, and what are you choosing not to do?
What shows it is complete: Adopted Game Plan with measurable outcomes, named people and dates; reason for its sequence and resource assumptions.
5. Write your Value Growth Plan
Explain where the business has been, where it stands, the five-year destination and how this year and quarter move you toward it. Connect the same Scorecard, North Star, Roadmap and Game Plan to the numbers and current leadership responsibilities. Open them from your Playbook dashboard.
Question to work through: Could someone follow your choices and their consequences without needing the plan to live in your head?
What shows it is complete: Owner-adopted narrative and working dashboard; source dates; current CEO/CRO/CFO/COO responsibilities; open assumptions with treatment, person and review date. Later capability work remains visible.
6. Use the Playbook to make a real decision
Use the assembled plan for a current ownership choice. Compare the effect on time, cash flow and wealth; decide, defer with conditions or continue with a supported reason. Record who acts and when you review it.
Question to work through: What did the plan help you decide, and what evidence would make you reconsider?
What shows it is complete: Dated actual decision and evidence considered, consequence for the current plan, responsible person and next review. A hypothetical rehearsal or AI draft alone is insufficient.
Review the milestone-specific 0–3 score and evidence test
0 (Not Started). You have not yet demonstrated the core planning concepts or begun connecting your own goals, business assessment and plan.
1 (Learning). You can explain how the Scorecard, Roadmap, North Star, 90-Day Game Plan and written Value Growth Plan work together. You can distinguish your clarity rating from evidence of installed capabilities. You have not yet begun assembling your own plan.
2 (In Progress). You have begun assembling your plan. One or more checklist actions remain incomplete, material assumptions are unexplained, or the complete plan has not yet been used in a real ownership decision.
3 (Installed). All six checklist actions are met. Your adopted written Value Growth Plan connects current evidence and ownership goals to this year’s North Star, the next 90-Day Game Plan, supporting financial information and named responsibilities. You can open the same current instruments from your Playbook, explain material gaps and their treatment, and show a real ownership decision made with the plan plus its next review.
Verification test: Open your Playbook and show the evidence for all six checklist actions. Explain the five-year direction, this year’s choices and the next quarter’s work using the same dates and assumptions. Walk through one real ownership decision, its time, cash-flow and wealth implications, what you decided, who acts and when you review it. A connected folder or polished narrative without that use is not installed.
Review suitable existing work before making more documents. Record each action as complete, incomplete or not reviewed, with its evidence and date. You choose the score; keep peer, coach and AI assessments and their reasons separate. Unreviewed evidence is not an automatic zero. A checklist percentage, prepared AI response or future invitation does not establish installation. Preserve earlier reviews and name the next useful action and review date.
Keep the plan in use
Keep one current narrative and its instruments in The Plan. The Numbers holds financial support; Your Leadership Team holds current responsibilities; The Rhythm holds dated reviews and decisions. A paper binder and digital collection should carry the same adopted answers.
Monthly reviews follow the current Game Plan. Quarterly reviews close it and adopt the next one. Annual planning revisits the direction. Update the narrative when an adopted choice changes its reasoning, preserving the earlier version. A routine monthly review does not require another complete essay.
Explore the idea further
- Designing the Game You Want to Play with Candice Bradley, episode 454. Consider time, current cash and future wealth together before judging an investment.
- Integrating Strategy, Execution and Financial Clarity with Shannon Susko, episode 436. Connect longer direction to resourced quarterly commitments. Her three-year approach is a guest method; iBD retains your five-year ownership goals.
- Strategic Planning vs. Strategy with Greg Meredith, episode 470. Distinguish planning activity from the choices that give a business direction.
Choose your next step
Review the wider system. The Ownership Assessment helps you examine the capabilities behind your plan and choose useful work. Keep evidence you have not reviewed visible rather than treating it as a zero.
Build the Playbook with support. The 90-Day Boardroom Blueprint connects ownership direction, the financial foundation and decisions in your first usable Playbook. Continuing use builds from there. You can explore help directly; completing the Assessment is not a prerequisite.
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