Planning is the front end of performance management. It begins the process.

1. Plan
2. Do
3. Monitor
4. Act

If performance planning (through strategic, business, divisional and individual planning) is done poorly, the rest of the process will fail.

Risk management is ensuring that potential barriers to accomplishing each stage are fully accounted for and ensures that each stage is accomplished successfully.

Risk management means answering the questions:

1. How can we ensure we 'do' as we planned?
2. What barriers might exist to prevent us monitoring and reporting our performance rigorously?
3. What contingency plans need to be established to bring us back on track if we are not progressing as required?
4. How can we feed our learning and experience back into the process?