You’ve got a new case, project, business, or idea and you want it to be successful.

You create a plan—what you want to accomplish, the resources you’ll need, research to do, the first step and the steps after that. Your plan might be a simple list of tasks or ideas, but but the process of thinking it through and writing it down helps you clarify what you want and what you need to do to get it.

“Doing” is obviously the most important part. The actions you take and how well you do them are the mechanism that delivers your results.

Most of us do the first two well enough. We plan and we do. Where most people drop the ball, myself included, is with what we do after that.

Once we have some results, we need to review what happened.

Reviewing means:

• Noting the size and scope of the outcome. How many leads or subscribers, how many new clients, how much revenue? Did you hit the goal? Make a profit? Get what you expected?
• Thinking about the process. What did you do well, what could you have done better, what will you change?
• (Optional): Getting feedback from others. Talk to your client, staff, partners, and other stakeholders. What do they think about the process and the results? What suggestions do they have for the future?
• Using what you’ve learned to create a better plan or decide to kill the idea and try something else.

The review process might only take a few minutes, but it’s key to achieving sustained growth.

Plan, do, review. You need all 3.