Scenario Planning and Agility: The Case for Scenarios In an Uncertain World Scenario planning and agility. Too often, managers and leaders focus on how to control the near-term. They don’t take the time to consider if what they prioritize as important today, will be useful, …
2016 Uncertainties In April of 2015, the McKinsey Global Institute published a report titled: ‘The four global forces breaking all the trends.’ I would argue that what McKinsey defined were not forces or disruptions, but new trends — which simultaneously, with related causation or not, …
c (Thank you to Lauren Lark for the great edits! – 20 points to Gryffindor) How to Make Strategy Stick For my Pinchot University class on Sustainability and Strategy, my students nominated the topic of making strategy stick as their discussion topic. Please join them …
Will Chocolate Save the World? Keep an eye on chocolate. It may save the world. In the scenario planning discipline we call side conversations about potentially big things a weak signal. It is an early cry of “wolf” in a world filled with potential catastrophes. Sometimes, that …
Download the PDF here: Strategies from Scenarios The future is complex and the paths forward a messy one. That has to be agreed to first. Any organization that thinks it controls its own destiny and can create the future in whole cloth does not need …
Voting for uncertainties in a scenario planning project is counterintuitive and sometimes overwhelming. The list of items arrives for consideration from interviews and research in which the people voting didn’t likely participate. That means that people voting need to familiarize themselves with the items on …
Strategy is messy, chaotic, and transformative, just like a youthful romance. You know you need to break up with your strategic plan. So who better than the Bard of Breakups herself to offer searing guidance on how to break with your strategic plan? Several years ago at a Microsoft …
Download the PDF here. Photo: Daniel W. Rasmus, 2004 I was talking recently with a colleague who consults for the cruise industry, and it struck me that the cruise industry desperately needs scenario planning. With ships approaching $1billion each, multi-billion dollar fleets require strong management, …
Download the entire paper here. 1. Workforce Dynamics Key Dynamic: Will the workforce effectively integrate, or will generational issues result in bifurcation? What skill gaps and needs for knowledge will emerge as each generation seeks to define its future? 2. Globalization Key Dynamic: Will the …
IT often drives change within organizations. This list of tens focuses on how IT can successfully implement new customer facing systems and infrastructure. Executive engagement Buy-in doesn’t cut it. If executives and organizational leaders don’t actively engage, drive and lead the new applications or infrastructure, …