September is a common strategic planning time for many companies. With fall just around the corner, this is a good time to begin thinking about maximizing your strategic planning process. If your planning process is not fostering collaboration among corporate and business-unit managers, nor making best use of best practices -- two conditions that improve planning process outputs, according to a recent McKinsey & Company survey -- scenario planning may offer a solution.
Scenario planning helps organizations envision a future very different from the present and develop concrete strategies that ensure success in a number of different possible futures. Companies also develop specific, measurable indicators that provide an early warning of what the future may bring, and the opportunity to start preparing today. In doing so, scenario planning encourages that managers from different parts of the company collaborate to offer their unique insights about the external environment. It also facilitates the consideration of prevailing environmental trends, likely competitor behavior, and external threats -- planning best practices executives say they wish they could follow more judiciously.
Let us know if your firm incorporates scenario planning into the annual planning process.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Why Now Is the Time To Take a Closer Look at Scenario Planning
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1 comment:
Karen,
Thanks for drawing attention to the value of scenario planning. You asked for examples of the use of scenario planning in a greater planning process, so here’s one for you.
Many professional associations are finding scenario planning valuable in their efforts to develop strategic plans that will weather a variety of possible futures.
During June / July of this year I participated in a scenario planning exercise as part of the Legal Marketing Association’s strategic planning process.
This use of scenario planning was a first for many task force members. The exercise also provided welcome relief from the usual “What’s our mission?” agonies everyone has suffered through. It was energizing and elicited extraordinary insights from all participants.
I will wager that those who went through this process will use the tool in law firms during the next twelve months – in practice group and industry group planning and other strategy work. I’m also confident our association’s new strategic plan will help us navigate almost any permutation of economic, cultural, and technological changes we may encounter during the next few years.
Ann
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