Scenario Planning offers a structured way for leaders to anticipate change - good and bad, expected and surprising. It assists management to look forward, from the outside-in, to imagine future opportunities and threats, and to frame strategic conversations against an uncertain but plausible business context. By “rehearsing the future” leadership teams find strength of purpose and confidence to take action.Scenario Planning can be a self-contained process or a powerful tool to address specific challenges and dilemmas in areas such as:
- Business Model Innovation
- Competitive Landscape
- Enterprise Risk
- Market Access
- Product Launch
- Value System Dynamics
- Vision & Aspiration
We begin by facilitating a client team to create scenarios – in effect, “stories” that capture a range of possibilities. These stories are designed to stretch our thinking about emerging changes and the opportunities and threats that might impact the business. We then lead the group through a series of planning exercises which force us to think about our potential responses – as a prelude to the actions we may be forced to take OR the actions we can begin to take today.
Our experience over the last two decades demonstrates that developing this type of critical thinking and perspective can be developed in weeks, not months. We find it particularly helpful to catalyze management teams who are gridlocked by the future uncertainties to take action on those strategic initiatives which offer the best return on investment in multiple scenarios. A flexible set of scenario thinking methods and tools should be a part of every organization’s leadership approach and strategy toolkit.
|
|