Planning for the long-term future will help you make decisions about what to invest in today. Planning is
how organizations create their pathway to the future. The payoff is in knowing what to change and what
not to change, and in having contingency plans for surprises.
1. Think strategically to enable emergence. Make the socio-cultural context central to stimulate
strategic conversations. Spot areas of strategic choice by identifying critical branching points.
2. Develop strategic options and recommendations based on the organization’s distinctive
attributes. Evaluate the proposed strategy along multiple dimensions that include “no-go,” “most
plausible,” and “preferred” options. Have a contingency plan for surprises because something
improbable is likely to happen.
Scenario planning is a way to think about different possibilities as a means of avoiding future problems.
The method started in the defense department in WWII. “What if” the Allied supply chain of US resources
were blocked? “What if” the Axis were to have the atomic bomb? Planning gives us the mechanics to
talk about stuff that’s hard to talk about. When planning doesn’t happen, we run into situations such as
Y2K, and the morass of today’s health care industry issues.
Another way to think about planning is, what should you start doing? Stop doing? Continue doing