Strategy Plan and Budget

Annual business plan with owners and dates

How do you plan the initiatives that each annual goal needs?

Works builds one annual plan from your annual goals. Each initiative gets a scope, one owner and dates. Works checks the plan against your budget and your team's time. Works orders the initiatives so that work others depend on starts first. Your leadership team approves the plan. Your whole team then gets one shared version.

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Updated

What you get
2027 annual plan · Fenwright Systems
Approved and shared
6 / 6
initiatives with one owner and dates
4
quarterly review points
Price change for customers with many sites CFO · January to March
Outbound sales to manufacturers with many sites VP of Sales · April to December
Mobile app for plant technicians Head of Product · January to September
Onboarding redesign Head of Customer Success · January to June
Success calls with each customer Head of Customer Success · April to December
A score that shows which customers may cancel Revenue Operations Manager · April to September

Your team reviews the plan every quarter.

See it run

A 2027 plan in progress

Plan year
2027 · $400,000 for initiatives
Initiatives placed in start order 4 / 6
Schedule
Every year
Review points every quarter
Run log
  1. You
    “Build the 2027 plan. Spend no more than $400,000 on initiatives.”
    Your instruction
    ✓
  2. You
    6 initiatives listed You
    You listed 3 initiatives for each of your 2 annual goals. Each initiative has one owner. Each initiative also has 2 or 3 milestones.
    ✓
  3. P
    Plan fits the budget and team time Planning Strategist
    The 6 initiatives needed 92 person-weeks of work and $420,000. A person-week is one person working for one week. Your team has 80 person-weeks for initiatives. The budget for initiatives is $400,000. You chose to cut the scope of the mobile app. The plan now needs 80 person-weeks and $400,000.
    ✓
  4. P
    Putting the initiatives in order Planning Strategist
    The Planning Strategist has placed 4 of the 6 initiatives in start order. The price change starts before outbound sales. A delay to the mobile app would delay the whole plan.
    •
  5. You
    Your approval needed You
    Present the plan to your leadership team for approval. The Plan Communicator then shares it with the whole team.
  6. ↓
    Annual goals used Upstream
    The 2 goals for 2027 come from Set Annual Business Goals.
    ✓
  7. ↓
    Revenue target used Upstream
    The $28 million revenue target for 2027 comes from Define Revenue Targets.
    ✓
  8. ↓
    Annual budget used Upstream
    The $400,000 for initiatives comes from Plan the Annual Budget.
    ✓
How it works

A plan that fits your budget and your team's time

You list three to five initiatives for each annual goal. Each initiative gets one owner. Each initiative also gets two or three milestones that show progress. You estimate the person-weeks and the budget for each initiative. A person-week is one person working for one week. The Planning Strategist checks the full list against your team's person-weeks and your budget. When the plan needs more than you have, you choose what to change. Initiatives that others depend on start first.

What it needs
Your annual goals
Your quarterly priorities
Your budget for the year
Your team's capacity and headcount for the year
What you get

An annual plan in one shared place, with each initiative scoped, owned, and timed. It is checked against budget and capacity, ordered with a critical path and quarterly review points, approved by the leadership team, and shared.

Run sequence

Start to finish

The work starts from your annual goals, revenue targets and annual budget. Four stages produce the approved plan.

  1. 1
    Initiative List

    List the initiatives for each goal

    Three to five initiatives for each annual goal
    One named owner for each initiative
    Two or three milestones that show progress
    You
  2. 2
    Resource and Budget Check

    Check the plan against your budget

    You estimate team time and budget per initiative
    Full list compared with team time and budget
    Work moved later or cut in scope to fit
    You + Planning Strategist
  3. 3
    Sequenced Timeline

    Put the initiatives in order

    Work that others depend on starts first
    You see which initiatives could delay the whole plan
    Quarterly review points added to the timeline
    Planning Strategist
  4. 4
    Approved and Shared Plan

    Approve and share the plan

    Your leadership team approves the final plan
    Your whole team gets a walkthrough
    One version stored in one shared place
    You + Plan Communicator
Before it starts

What Works asks you

A few questions in plain words. The answers set up the run for your business.

For each annual goal, what are the three to five major initiatives that must happen to reach it?
YouTo cut churn: redo onboarding, add success calls, score customer health
Who is the one named person, not a team, who owns each initiative?
YouEach initiative tagged to one person, with no shared ownership
How much time does your team have for project work this year, beyond each person's core role?
YouTight budget, so team time is the real limit
Do you want the latest annual budget to be the upper limit for the plan, so nothing is planned beyond what is funded?
YouYes, the budget is the upper limit
How often do you want review points where the plan can be adjusted?
YouQuarterly reviews
Who needs to approve the plan before it is final?
YouThe full leadership team in a planning session
Who runs it

The agents behind this workflow

The Planning Strategist checks the plan against your budget and your team's time. The Plan Communicator shares the approved plan, and the Strategic Narrative Writer helps your team explain the strategy.

Playbook specialist
S

Strategic Narrative Writer

Owns this area

Writes the strategic narrative and the internal communication that helps every team understand the strategy.

Help people explain the strategyDesign a communication schedule and formatsKeep people aligned with the strategy over time
On this workflow
P

Planning Strategist

Checks the initiative list against budget and capacity, maps dependencies, and orders the plan with a critical path

Estimate and check the effort and budget for each initiativeCheck the full plan against capacity and the annual budgetMap initiative dependencies and identify the critical pathPlace quarterly review points in the timeline
P

Plan Communicator

Summarizes the approved plan and shares it, so the whole team works from one version

Summarize the plan for the teamRun an all-team walkthroughStore the plan in one shared placeSend the plan to every team member
Jeanie, your Chief of Staff Works Crew

Jeanie leads a core crew of seven that runs your company day to day. They direct the specialist and workflow agents in each playbook, including the ones on this workflow.

Connections · apps · integrations

Bring what you already run

The apps and accounts this workflow reads from and writes to. Connect them once and Works keeps them in sync.

Google SheetsGoogle SlidesNotion
  • Google Sheets. You can keep the plan in a shared Google Sheet.
  • Google Slides. You can keep a summary of the plan in Google Slides.
  • Notion. You can store the one shared version of the plan in Notion.

These are starting points, not a limit. Connect the tools you already use.

Related workflows

10 Strategy workflows use this plan.

Builds on
Set Annual Business Goals
Builds on
Define Revenue Targets
This one
Build Annual Plan
Feeds into 10 workflows
Create 90-Day Plan
Plan Resources and Capacity
Sequence the Growth Roadmap
Communicate Strategy to the Team
Stress-Test the Plan
Run an Annual Planning Process
Model Headcount Needs
Plan Strategy Communications
Run a Mid-Year Strategy Review
Design the Organization Structure
Works · AI business OS

One workflow inside your whole business

In Strategy, Build Annual Plan is part of the Plan and Budget work.

Prebuilt playbooks, plus your own
StrategyMarketingSalesCustomer SuccessPartnershipsProducts & ServicesOperationsFinancePeopleLegal & Compliance + Build your own
The Strategy playbook
73
Workflows
19
Specialist agents
42
Workflow agents
238
Templates
You're here
Build Annual Plan
One of 73 Strategy workflows · run by 2 workflow agents
Templates

What comes with it

Built for this workflow
XLSX
Annual Execution Plan
A planner to list each initiative for the year with its owner and dates. It opens in Works after you sign up.
XLSX
Initiative Inventory and Sequencing Tracker
A tracker to list your initiatives by start date. It opens in Works after you sign up.
XLSX
Capacity vs Budget Validation
A matrix to check your plan against your team's time and your budget. It opens in Works after you sign up.
DOCX
Initiative Dependency Map
A map to show which initiatives must start before others can start. It opens in Works after you sign up.
Also included here
DOCX
Annual Goals Worksheet
A worksheet to set your goals for the year. It opens in Works after you sign up.
XLSX
Revenue Target Model
A model to set your revenue target for the year. It opens in Works after you sign up.
XLSX
Revenue Gap Analysis Model
A model to find the gap between your revenue and your revenue target. It opens in Works after you sign up.
XLSX
90-Day Execution Plan
A planner to plan your work for the next 90 days. It opens in Works after you sign up.
DOCX
Critical Path Map
A map to show the initiatives that would delay the whole plan if they ran late. It opens in Works after you sign up.
XLSX
Capacity Planning Model
A model to work out how much work your team can take on. It opens in Works after you sign up.
DOCX
Roadmap Dependency Map
A map to show which parts of your roadmap depend on each other. It opens in Works after you sign up.
XLSX
Annual Planning Process Calendar
A calendar to set the dates for each part of your yearly planning. It opens in Works after you sign up.
XLSX
Functional Plan Tracker
A tracker to follow the plan of each team in the business. It opens in Works after you sign up.
XLSX
Headcount Plan Model
A model to plan how many people your team needs. It opens in Works after you sign up.

Each template opens inside Works after you sign up.

Questions

What people ask

What do you need before you start?

You need your annual goals and your quarterly priorities. You also need your budget for the year. Your team's capacity and headcount for the year limit how much work the plan can include. The annual goals come from Set Annual Business Goals. The budget comes from Plan the Annual Budget.

What happens when the plan needs more than your team or budget has?

The Planning Strategist checks the full list of initiatives against your team's time and your budget. When the plan needs more than you have, you choose how to fix it. You can move the least critical initiative to a later quarter. You can also cut the scope of the initiative that needs the most work.

What is the critical path?

The critical path is the set of initiatives that would delay the whole plan if they ran late. The Planning Strategist finds which initiatives depend on others. Work that others depend on starts first. You choose how the plan shows the critical path initiatives, for example as a separate list.

How does your team get the plan?

Your leadership team approves the plan first. The Plan Communicator then writes a summary of the plan for the team. The Plan Communicator also runs a walkthrough of the plan with the whole team. The Plan Communicator stores the plan in one shared place. The Plan Communicator sends the plan to every team member.

Plan next year from your annual goals

Sign up to list the initiatives for your first annual goal.

Sign Up