All Posts Tagged With: "scenario planning"
The Most Important Question in Strategy
One of the key issues in strategic planning is not directly addressed by the Baldrige Criteria. It occurs during the strategy development phase of the process as participants analyze relevant data and information about factors that will shape the plan and then use their analysis to agree on what should be in the plan. Coming to agreement can be a contentious debate, one opinion competing with another, with decisions made based on who ranks the highest or makes the best argument or outlasts opposing views.
It’s not the best way to chart a course.
Roger Martin is Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He has facilitatestrategic planning sessions. In “My Eureka Moment with Strategy” (HBR, May 3, 2010), he tells the story of a planning session with ten mining company executives that “quickly descended into adversarial position-taking and I could tell it was going nowhere.”
He stopped the descent by asking the executives a different question. Instead of one person making his case and everyone else telling him why he was wrong, Martin asked the executives “to specify what would have to be true for the option on the table to be a fantastic choice.” Instead of competitors,…
6Jul2010 | Steve George | 0 comments | ContinuedPlanning for the Longer-Term
In thinking about how your organization develops its strategy, the Baldrige Criteria raise two issues that are often get less attention than they deserve: (1) the information and data you collect, analyze, and report that informs your priorities and decisions and (2) the longer-term planning horizon and related performance projections.
Futurist Jamais Cascio addresses these two issues in a process he described in “Futures Thinking: The Basics,” for Fast Company (September 17, 2009). His process has five steps:
- Asking the Question. “The exploration into different possible futures comes from a narrow concern,” writes Cascio. He recommends asking strategic questions in terms of dilemmas, not problems, because you will come up with different possible responses, which you can evaluate and choose as circumstances change, rather than searching for one perfect solution. Pick a longer-term time horizon that is relevant for your organization such as after planned regulations take effect, when resource availability or pricing will change, when a demographic shift occurs (such as Baby Boomers retiring), or when there is a change in political leadership. Reconsider your question throughout the process by asking if it is still the right question.
- Scanning the World. Baldrige asks how you consider your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; early indications of…
