When you are leading change in turbulent times, thinking about and proactively planning for best- and worst-case scenarios can be extremely valuable.  It can enable you to mobilize and move quickly as conditions change, by already having thought about actions you could take.

Recently, @BarbaraHenders @GrayKueberuwa and I discussed ways to make scenario planning both fun and highly valuable!

We think it’s a great approach to planning when the environment is changing quickly.

Our key insights:

  1. Make it fun. Use crazy extremes to unlock your brains creativity about possible futures that seem impossible.
  2. Plan as a group. Building on others knowledge and combining your strategic thinking capabilities will help individuals and the group to grow and will result in the alignment of the group.
  3. Have an action focused approach. Coming out of a scenario planning exercise with some actions that will kick start a response should conditions change creates the value.  We have found that often both best- and worst-case scenarios may have common responses, so proactively responding can lead to an increased ability to pivot as needed.
  4. Recognize your group and individual predispositions. Sometimes individuals have a propensity to be over optimistic about the future. It’s important they think about negative outcomes and how they will mitigate any downsides that may occur so responses can be formulated.  Alternatively, some people are more pessimistic and may not seize opportunities for success unless that has been considered.
  5. Extend your ability to think long term. Sometimes it’s hard to step out of our comfort zone and think past the next few months. When scenario planning approaches are used, we can think further and evolve our ability to plan strategically
  6. Consider having a facilitator. It can be useful to have a facilitator if any of these conditions are in place. If your problem is complex, you need group buy in, your group is not high performing, and you are not skilled in group processes