2009 has come to a close and 2010 has already well and truly kicked into gear, but before you get bogged down in the day to day tasks of running your business, it's important that you take the time to evaluate the year that has just concluded. Completing this process as soon as possible in the New Year is critical if your evaluation is to be accurate and frank - if you leave your evaluation till later in the year you may not have a clear view of what occurred and it may be too late to right your wrongs.

For those of you that conduct your business planning based on the financial year (rather than the calendar year), completing an evaluation at year's end is still a worthwhile process as it may allow you to detect things that aren't working exactly as you envisioned and to change them to your advantage. This will allow you to improve your results now, rather than waiting until the end of the financial year.

So, to kick off your evaluation process and ensure that 2010 is your best year yet, here are a few topics you need to consider:

• What did your business achieve in 2009?
• Where did you miss the mark?
• What did you achieve personally?

What did your business achieve in 2009? 

It's usually best to start on a positive note, focusing on the successes of your business before you delve in deeper and examine the things that didn't quite work out as planned. Answering the following questions will allow you and your team to draw out the activities you did well. From that point you can determine whether you should be continuing with these activities, tweaking these activities for further business benefit or whether their success was a one off that can't be repeated.

1. What new skills did you and your staff acquire and learn to use?
2. What were your top accomplishments?
3. What training did you and your team complete to help you grow and develop?
4. What was your best monetary investment?
5. What was your best investment in time?

Where did you miss the mark?

Although we don't usually like to admit that we got something wrong or that things may not have turned out exactly as we'd planned, it's important to evaluate any weaknesses or instances where you may have missed your business targets. By examining these items you can ensure that you understand why things went wrong and you can prevent this situation from occurring again in 2010.

1. What initiatives did you implement that didn't achieve their intended outcomes?
2. What mistakes did you make?
3. What training did you pass up that could have benefited you or your team?
4. Where did you spend money without achieving significant positive benefit for your business?
5. What could you have done better?

What did you achieve personally?

Finally, business aside, you should take a moment to reflect on yourself. Running a small business is a challenging task and to be at your very best it is important that you do take some time out for yourself. Ask yourself the following questions to see whether you took enough time for yourself during 2009.   

1. What important things did you learn about yourself?
2. What did you learn from your biggest mistake?
3. What personal relationships did you strengthen?
4. What did you do to improve your health?
5. What would you have done differently if you could go back and do it again?

Be sure you answer all of these questions honestly as this is the only way you can establish a roadmap that will allow you to make 2010 your best year ever!When going through this process you may wish to discuss these questions with your team. Discussing your business goals and strategy with your team has many positive benefits - it allows your staff to feel involved, provides you with a range of perspectives and it allows everyone to understand where the business is headed. This means you are all pulling in the right direction to achieve your business goals!

Now that you've answered these questions and thoroughly assessed your successes and failures its time to re-visit your business plan for 2010.If you need more information about business planning read D&B's article on developing a business plan >>