When I started Boyink Interactive, I followed the “common” advice and started looking into business plans. 

I spent about an hour, then gave up.

Why?

The models I found seemed designed to present to someone while asking for money, and I wasn’t asking anyone for money.  It seemed that for me the business plan essentially boiled down to “be billable as much as possible”.  Anything past that was shooting arrows in the dark at targets that may not even exist.

It strikes me that, while I hear the “gotta have a business plan” mantra every time someone is talking about starting a new business, I’ve have never ever run across an existing business plan at an employer or client.  Even when doing in-depth business stakeholder interviews during the research phase of an internet revamp, where I ask questions about where the business is heading, no one has ever referenced or produced a business plan as an answer.

So what say you - have you done a business plan?  Found it to be helpful?  Have you seen a business plan for your employer?  For a client?

Or are business plans one of those things that sounds great when you talk about it, but in practice aren’t able to really have any effect in a business climate based on change and adaptability?