Scenario Planning
"82% of Fortune 500 CEO's surveyed indicated that they feel their organization did an effective job of strategic planning. Only 14% of the same CEO's indicated that their organization did an effective job of implementing the strategy."
- Forbes Magazine

The old clich?© says that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Taken one step further, and applied to today’s strategic planning environment, it is possible to say that learning from your past is critical to creating your desired future.

Just as you would not use balsa wood to build a spaceship, so you should not use outdated and inadequate tools for testing the soundness of your business strategy. Warp-speed change and uncertain futures require 21st century planning tools.

Scenario Planning is a method for providing awareness of potential risks, and thereby improving planning and responsiveness to avert strategic disaster. It is a group process which encourages knowledge exchange by testing your strategy against a wide range of potential future developments. In practice, scenarios resemble a set of stories, written or spoken, built around carefully constructed plots.

Stories are a time-tested way of managing knowledge; when used as strategic tools they confront disagreement by encouraging, in fact, requiring the willing suspension of disbelief. Stories can express multiple points of view on complex events; scenarios make sense out of these events.

The stories, together with the discussions and analysis involved in creating them have the dual purpose of:

  • Increasing the knowledge of the business environment
  • Widening your perception of possible future events

Good scenarios are credible and startling; they have the power to break old stereotypes, and their authors assume ownership and put them to work. Using scenarios is rehearsing the future.

Decisions which have been pre-tested against a range of what the future may hold are more likely to stand the test of time, produce robust and resilient strategies, and create distinct competitive advantage.

Let AdVantage Consulting help you to design and create your most plausible future using the advanced tool of Scenario Planning!!

Used in combination, all three ‘fast cycle’ processes: Prometheus; creation of your Vision and Mission, and the development of Scenario Plans to map out implementation, give you a precise and clear roadmap to your future: