A Full Guide on Business Blueprinting

Business blueprinting is a way to outline your business’s needs, goals, and other details to understand how it will run and how all the pieces will fit together before you launch your company or re-evaluate and reorganize a current business.

9 Steps of developing a business blueprint

Here we’ll look at the eight steps of developing a business blueprint:

Step 1: Take inventory of where things stand

Step one involves taking a complete inventory of your business goals, plans, and processes. This will provide you with a place to start making changes. Make a list of what works well and what doesn’t.

Step 2: Revise current business processes

If you’re revising your current business plan, your next step will be to review and rewrite your business processes.

Create an outline of your projects, management structure and people placement, finances and accounting, marketing and sales plans, and your plan for projected company growth.

Your resources include the people involved in your company and your products or services. By organizing your management structure to better serve each process in your business, you’ll increase efficiency to see growth and progress.

To keep things running smoothly, set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each area so you can see how they perform.

Step 3: Set deadlines and budgets

Set deadlines and stick to them. Establish an organized structure for yourself and your staff where you’ll practice self-discipline by honoring deadlines you’ve put in place.

This discipline should also extend to your budget, and you’ll need to abide by an established budget that will enable everyone involved to efficiently utilize the company’s assets.

Step 4: Develop a master security plan

Develop a master security plan to protect sensitive information. Management must have specific action items to keep employees, facilities, visitors, products, and services safe from threats. The plan should include facility enhancements, security equipment, and best practices for password management and intellectual property safeguards.

Include plans for physical security (temperature-controlled environments, protective glass, security guards, or access control processes), as well as expenses, budgets, data backups, and your disaster recovery plans. If you don’t have an internal team you can rely on to help with these decisions, consider hiring outside security experts to conduct a security audit, so you can then evaluate and make changes.

Step 5: Draft an initial blueprint

The next step will be to draft your initial blueprint. Doing this will enable you to see your plan written out and allow you to organize your outline better once it is visible on paper.

There’s a stark difference between a business outline in your head versus seeing it written out. Once you’ve created your first draft, you can revise and work out the details as they come up.

Step 6: Create a blueprint implementation plan

Once your business blueprint is revised into a workable format, the next step is implementing your plan.

You’ll want to outline a separate program for setting your blueprint in motion. This will include the steps you’ll take and in what order you’ll implement these changes. Speak with your staff and business advisors to understand how this will impact them and how they can contribute to making the implementation go smoothly.

Step 7: Test the new business processes

The next step will be to test your new business processes. It helps to have an independent advisor review all business actions so they can provide helpful feedback on what’s working well and what needs adjustment. Get feedback from internal stakeholders and team members to view your business processes from different perspectives.

Step 8: Implement change

After initially testing your new business procedures, you can revise your business blueprint and apply these changes within your existing company or begin your official launch as a new well-planned company.

You’ll need to communicate with your teams to make sure that you remain consistent and within budget. By this point, you should be able to see whether or not the changes you have made will create the type of efficiency you were aiming for.

Step 9: Monitor your KPIs

Make sure your KPIs are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example, you may want to see a 15% increase in sales within six months with your new marketing strategy. Essentially, you aim to achieve certain checkpoints in your company by certain times in your business growth.

Building a business requires much thought and planning, with each step bringing you closer to realizing your goals. However, overcoming obstacles is possible with the proper guidance and implementation of the appropriate tools.