A good business plan starts with a top-down vision and then continues bottom-up foundation.
🎯 The top-down plan shows where the company wants to go — the ambition and direction.
🧩 The bottom-up plan defines how to get there — the more concrete actions, resources, and numbers.
What is Bottom-Up Planning?
Bottom-up planning connects strategy with execution. It makes the plan realistic, data-driven.
This is also the point when more people should be involved in defining the plan. Why? Because when teams help build the plan, their commitment and confidence grow. And why is that? Because people support what they help create.
To make the process clear and structured, I use the C.H.A.R.T. method, a simple way to chart your company’s course from ambition to action.
🧭 C – Create the Baseline
Start by breaking the top-down plan into subcomponents (business lines, departments, or functions).
Each has a responsible person, and guidelines in terms of expected revenues, and cost constraints, based on top down numbers and identified growth drivers.
This creates a shared starting point that links the overall ambition to each team’s contribution.
⚓ H – Highlight the Actions
For every subcomponent, define what must be done to reach the targets — more concrete actions and initiatives, assumptions, risks and opportunities.
This gives clarity on how results will be achieved and brings the teams directly into the planning process, and what are the resources needed to support the actions.
📊 A – Approximate in Numbers
Each team then translates its actions into figures: expected revenues, costs, and other resources.
The focus isn’t perfection, but realism. These numbers make the plan tangible and test whether ambitions fit the company’s capacity.
🔍 R – Review and Refine
Next, consolidate all subcomponents into a company-wide plan.
Compare it with the top-down view to find and really understand the gaps or overlaps.
🎯 T – Tune for Alignment
Through review and discussion, address the gaps and overlaps with all the contributors.
Expect several iterations of number adjustments, review and refinement, then alignment again.
With each iteration, the resulted bottom up plan will become more credible, more aligned, more solid.
Bottom-up planning transforms top-down ambition into a shared roadmap: a coordinated action with measurable results.