Yes, Planning Still Matters
By Sarah Di Troia
I hear it a lot these days: “Why bother planning? With everything changing so much and so fast, what’s the point?”
Maybe long-term planning was always a fool’s errand, since strategic plans, like new cars, lose much of their value once you drive off the lot. In today’s environment especially, it may seem ludicrous to map a path for even the next quarter, let alone multiple years out into the future.
But rapid change and a high degree of unpredictability make strategic planning more important than ever.
Prepare to be Wrong
I have yet to work with a client that’s clairvoyant. Every plan has unknowns, both inside and outside of the organization, about today and about the future. Uncertainties are the only thing that is certain. It is baked in from the start.
That’s why every strategic plan needs to begin with scenario planning: What does the present look like? What are the key uncertainties that are outside of our control but shape the context in which we are working? What could a sunny future look like that would lead us to accelerate our plans? What could a rainy future look like that would force trade-offs?
The question is not, “How do we correctly predict the future?” Don’t try, we can’t. The question is, “What do we do if it is sunny, or rainy, or cloudy?”
What matters is whether management has the insight, let alone the ability, to flex and adjust to circumstances as they present themselves. It’s all going to change and you and your organization need to be prepared for that inevitability. Starting strategic planning by thinking about multiple future scenarios instills flexible thinking and creates a shared baseline to revisit.
Plans Are for Learning, Not Just Execution
It might sound exhausting but, in fact, this approach to planning is invigorating because it acknowledges the learning that is at the heart of every plan. Plans that encompass emergent and unknown markets, growth, new customers, all represent rich learning opportunities along with the key uncertainties that are outside your control.
Today, the focus needs to be on specifying the internal learning agenda, tracking external uncertainties, interrogating the plan regularly, and adjusting as you go based on new information and circumstances.
The learning is as central to the plan’s value as the outcome itself.
Find Your True North
In the “old days” (pre-2020), nonprofits would raise growth capital, establish milestones, and work the plan. Investors were wooed with the idea that the future was knowable and the results were certain.
Well, if that was ever true, it isn’t anymore. The last two years have made it clear that there is a ton of risk and most things are out of our control.
In a world of continual disruption, effective planning is about heading off in what seems to be the right direction and with eyes wide open, knowing full well that while the map in our back pocket is very likely incomplete, we have the ability to course correct.