I’m assuming you are or will be comparing your actual 2011 results against your goals for the year. Good for you! But once you have that information I encourage you to take it one step further.
Long ago I learned how useful it can be to review or do what we called a “post mortem” on our best and worst results. I do this every year for myself and not just my businesses.
By looking carefully at past results you can learn much to help you improve future results. By looking over past project results at one technology company we learned important lessons that, in hind sight, would seem obvious. We learned that the first project with an unfamiliar hardware platform or a new version of software always took longer than expected and had additional glitches to deal with. We learned which engineers had the tendency to under estimate the time required to complete a project and which ones padded their estimates. Moving forward we made adjustments for this.
Reviewing the past year’s highs and lows often reveal trends that are hard to spot at the time. This has been a useful tool for me as a business owner, manager and a sales manager. It has revealed useful data on staff idiosyncrasies, project pitfalls, product and service opportunities, price models, business partner performance, compensation packages, supplier performance and more. All this information is useful in moving your business forward more quickly and profitably.
Take a half a day and review the past year’s highs and lows. It’s a great way to prevent repeating past mistakes and do more of what you do best and most profitably.
In short, yes.
We came .07 short of our annual goal and understand why.
That said, there’s still reason to celebrate as even victory happens in defeat.