• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Services
    • Vendor Advisory Services
    • Agile Thinking Workshop
    • Strategy and Scenarios
    • Thought Leadership & Content Marketing
  • Reviews
    • All Hardware Reviews
    • Headphone Reviews
    • USB-C Hub Reviews
    • Toy Reviews
    • CES 2023
    • Software Reviews
  • Advisory Research
    • Serious Insights on AI
    • Hybrid Work
    • Collaboration
    • Knowledge Management
    • The Metaverse
    • Strategy & Scenarios
    • Management
    • Marketing
    • Learning Reimagined
    • Serious Insights: The 10s
    • Special Reports
    • Sponsored Research
  • About Us
    • Daniel W. Rasmus
    • Daniel W. Rasmus Appearances
    • Videos
    • Clients
    • Headshots
    • Books
      • Management by Design
      • Listening to the Future
      • Twelve Ways to Escape an Alien
      • Older Books
    • Twitter
    • Daniel W. Rasmus World Travel
    • Dan’s Quotes
    • Community
    • Site Disclaimer
    • Privacy Policy
  • News
  • Contact Us
    • Book Daniel W. Rasmus
    • Newsletter Subscription
    • Product Evaluation Request Form
    • Wedding Ceremonies
Serious Insights

Serious Insights

Research and reviews from strategist, futurist and analyst Daniel W. Rasmus

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Instagram

Strategy and Scenarios

Download the Brochure

Strategy and Scenarios

Strategic Planning and the Future of Work

Strategic planning creates organizational context. It is the primary means by which an organization sets priorities, plans resources, examines operations, and offers a high-level operation framework for employees and stakeholders. The strategic plan brings together high-level goals as a way to signal consensus on shared outcomes. A strategic plan sets direction and offers a differentiated organizational approach to the market so that competitors, and their actions, can be properly assessed.

The best strategic plans don’t have dates, they have version numbers because they reflect not the day the plan was created, but the moments in which it is being applied. Every strategic action changes the plan and the plan should be an on-going, real-time tool for decision making and organizational assessment. Every strategic action should be made against the backdrop of the plan, and the plan should immediately reflect the impact of the decision, and regular updates should be made as decisions play out. Strategic plans should be plans of action, not just a statement of intent.

Scenario Planning: Uncertainties and stories about the future

Scenario planning builds stories about the future that can be used to inform strategy, drive innovation, or create thought leadership. The process involves understanding the uncertainties related to a focal question, like “what will work look like in 2030?” The process then explores a range of ways that question might play out under different social, technological, economic, environmental, and political circumstances. The documentation of those stories become the scenario narratives.

All of our strategic services include the potential use of long-range scenarios to assist in strategic dialog. Scenarios help organizations challenge assumptions, develop early warning systems, and avoid surprises.


Strategic planning typically answers the following questions:

  • What is our mission? Our purpose?
  • Vision: What do we want the organization to become?
  • What do we offer now and what should/can we (do we have permission) to offer in the future?
  • Who are our offers for? (what base of customers do we serve?)
  • What do we do that is unique? What differentiates us from other businesses?
  • Do we have competitors? If so, how do we become the supplier or service of choice?
  • What is our current culture and how do we align it to execute our strategy?
  • What internal and external strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats do we face?
  • What are our goals and objectives: financial, customers, internal business processes, and people?
  • How have past actions influenced, changed, or reaffirmed assertions made in the plan?
  • What uncertainties do we face?
  • What scenarios about the future can help us navigate change more effectively?

For more reading on strategic planning visit our Strategy Brain that consolidates all of the Serious Insights posts on strategy and scenario planning.

Visit the Strategy Brain
The Serious Insights Strategy Brain - Strategic planning


Institutional Planning

Serious Insights helps educational institutions innovate by coupling accreditation with strategic planning. This approach allows for educational institutions to be more nimble in the near-term—to plan and execute at the pace of change—and to be more efficient in delivering accreditation materials because much of the work of accreditation becomes a packaging exercise for strategies, definitions, and approaches already documented, being implemented and being assessed.

Serious Insights conducts analysis so that colleges and universities can better understand their strategic context. We employ a number of methods from traditional strategic planning processes to programs that use scenario planning and strategic dialog. We move beyond the “strategic plan” as a document in order to help organizations can act and think more strategically. Serious Insights helps organizations explore their strategic context in order to maximize their unique advantages, improve perceptions, develop a vision, redefine their brand, or effectively integrate sustainability and social justice. Clients will also learn how to upscale their relationships with students, staff, faculty, the community, and partners to capture more inclusive strategic insights.

For additional reading on strategic planning in education see:

  • “Ten rules for creating good higher education strategy“
  • “Exploring Microsoft Future of Work Scenarios: Implications for Higher Education” Innovate. Fischler School of Education and Human Services, Nova Southeastern University. February/March 2009. Link
  • “Scenarios and the Future of Education.” Innovate. Fischler School of Education and Human Services, Nova Southeastern University. June/July 2008. Link

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to Serious Insights

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,529 other subscribers
Prime Video Free trial

Amazon Prime Free Trial

Top Posts

  • Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless Review: Outstanding Sound and Great Battery Life Outshine a Practical Design
    Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless Review: Outstanding Sound and Great Battery Life Outshine a Practical Design
  • Hubble Connected Nursery Pal Premium Review: A Well-Connected HD Baby Monitor That Excels at Safety and Play
    Hubble Connected Nursery Pal Premium Review: A Well-Connected HD Baby Monitor That Excels at Safety and Play
  • Xebec Tri-Screen 2 Review: A Top-Notch Dual Monitor Solution for Road Warriors (and for Those in a Home Office Too)
    Xebec Tri-Screen 2 Review: A Top-Notch Dual Monitor Solution for Road Warriors (and for Those in a Home Office Too)
  • 12 Hybrid Work Fears Managers Must Face
    12 Hybrid Work Fears Managers Must Face
  • JBL Tune 215TWS Review: Great Wireless Earbuds on a Budget
    JBL Tune 215TWS Review: Great Wireless Earbuds on a Budget

Recent Comments

  • useful link on ESR Rebound Magnetic Keyboard Case for iPad Pro 12.9 Review: A Keyboard Case that Envokes Apple’s Magic at a Much Lower Price
  • verifique aquilo on Xebec Tri-Screen 2 Review: A Top-Notch Dual Monitor Solution for Road Warriors (and for Those in a Home Office Too)
  • Edison on Tribit StormBox Micro 2 Review: A Versatile Bluetooth Speaker That Plays Even if You Wear it in the Rain
  • Daniel W. Rasmus on OWC Thunderbolt Hub Review: The Answer to Thunderbolt 4 Connectivity on Macs, PCs, and Tablets
  • Sheila on 12 Hybrid Work Fears Managers Must Face

Footer

Sitemap

  • Blogs
  • Book Daniel W. Rasmus
  • About Daniel W. Rasmus
  • Serious Insights LLC Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • Newsletter Subscription

Archives

Tag Cloud

ABC Apple AR artificial intelligence Big Data Brenthaven BusinessWeek Cengage CIO Magazine CIOs Cisco context coronavirus Customer Service Dell Disney Disneyland Enterprise 2.0 facebook Fast Company Feedback loops Harvard Business Review HBR HP IBM Innovation Instagram iPad JBL Kindle Knowledge Management life-long learning Logitech Management By Design Microsoft mission statement Netflix New Scientist Nokia NPR scenario planning Star Trek Stephen Elop Thought Leadership VR

Copyright 2009-2023 Serious Insights LLC | Log in

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in .

Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.