Adaptive Planning

Mt. Everest rises in the distance. A magnificent challenge! For climbers, the goal is clear - Reach the top and return safely. In commerce, our goal is equally obvious - Create durable wealth. In climbing, we mount an expedition, a multi-staged, multifaceted effort made over time. In commerce, we develop a business - a dynamic learning system that consistently produces profits by satisfying customers over time in competitive environments. In climbing and business, we plan for contingencies. On Everest, storms can mean death. In commerce, rapid change can kill a business fast. The devil always lies in the details. Both expeditions and businesses need the right people, experience, expertise, strategies, innovations, and timing, all designed and integrated into an adaptive organization.

Durable Directions: Remember what the Cheshire Cat said to Alice in Wonderland? "If you don't know where you are going, then any path will take you there."

To accelerate planning, we first stop to make basic decisions that yield durable strategic directions. As developed by Rich Visioning, durable decisions include:

Vision: The history we want to make. Details may change, yet the direction can endure.

Mission: Our sense of purpose can outlast vast change in our products, markets, and delivery strategies.

Goals: Goals set strategic directions. Objectives change with plan year. The combination delivers stability plus adaptability.

Brand: A durable promise of value attached to a memorable, marketable company or product identity.

Principles: Basic rules or truths that guide behaviors. The core of cultures.

Agile Strategies: Typical plans deal with functions and processes. (e.g., Product Development and portfolio management) In truth, both are strategies - methods for reaching plan-year objectives.

Functions and processes are not agile. They do jobs, perform tasks. They do what they are told to do, often limited by design.

Strategies must be agile. If a strategy can't outperform other ways of reaching target objectives, it has no value. Indeed, the company is a strategy for meeting customer needs. If we can't outperform our competition, we have no value to customers.

Adaptive Planning works with "integrated strategies " - clusters of strategies implemented together to reach objectives. To stay agile, we manage the mix of strategies over time.

Scenario Planning: Typical plans make assumptions, and generally work toward the best case. In truth, "best cases" depend on situations that can be previewed in "scenarios." For example, gaining an unexpected, high-profile customer changes the best case in terms of motivating other customers.

Integrated strategies play off nicely against scenarios. If this, then that. When situations change, and they will, the integrated strategy can change quickly.

Competitive Playing Field: Typical plans measure competition and decide how to compete. The best companies decide how the competition must compete.

We compete today on a specific suite of strengths, and we expect the competition to catch up within, say, 12 months. By a year from now we must have redefined our competitive playing field. Changing the rules can gain another generation of advantage.

Managing the playing field takes much more than ordinary planning. We need to build knowledge (no small task), measure trends, then develop strategies to stay ahead.

Scaling Up: Typical plans project growth without projecting evolution of strategies. Big-company complexity requires strategies not present at all in smaller companies.

Integrated strategies grow to match company growth. For an entrepreneur, five methods might make up an integrated marketing strategy. A midsize company may need 20 methods.

Growth may take management team beyond their experience levels. Indeed, targeting growth means incorporating strategies for development of management.

Culture: Typical plans totally ignore corporate culture, yet culture is a powerful strategy for accelerating and sustaining performance.

Reinvention: At one or several points, every company will reinvent itself. Companies with aggressive, strategic mindsets plan reinvention cycles well in advance.

Reinvention means at least a dramatic change in products plus a significant change in brand. For strong brands, the value promise carries the change. For weaker brands, reinvention is an opportunity to define and develop a much stronger brand.

Modular Planning: Typical plans mix concepts in every section. Changing any part of the plan means changing the whole plan.

Plans can be developed the way software is built - in modules. By this method, each change in product, market, strategy, or alliance only affects specific plan modules.

Indeed, modules can be matched to scenarios so that, for instance, a new competitive product is known to impact specific plan sections. And of course, each plan section impacts specific company operations.

Modular planning, scenarios, and integrated strategies enable rapid adjustments to change. This is the core of adaptive planning.

Multi-Level Planning: Larger organizations need plans at each hierarchical and functional level. Ideally, each plan takes its goals and objectives from a higher level, and thus supports the corporate goals established by the Board of Directors. Sadly, much planning is done in isolation because strategic directions don't flow down in any useful way. To enable multi-level adaptive planning, all Rich Visioning results need to be visible to everyone.

Ownership: Plans have no value if not used. Leadership owns the responsibility to create ownership of each strategy by the appropriate performers.

Thus a key strategy in each plan is marketing of the plan to everyone it impacts. When planning is done by a planning group, internal marketing begins by gaining management buy-in, then works on staff.

Prospectus: Plans are tools for managing businesses, functions, and projects. A prospectus is a tool for marketing an idea, project, or business. The two are distinct.

Entrepreneurs typically produce "business plans" to gain funding. Almost invariably, the "plan" is neither useful for running the business nor capable of marketing the vision. An executive summary of a weak plan only hurts a funding effort.

Market Engineering recommends separate documents: A business plan based on Rich Visioning and Adaptive Planning, and a Prospectus as a sales tool that draws content from the plan.

Adaptive Planning: Strategic pre-planning (Rich Visioning) greatly simplifies planning. Yet more can be done to reduce time, increase flexibility, and maximize the power of the resulting plan.

Market Engineering's Adaptive Planning™ integrates top-quality writing skills with ten distinct criteria for effective planning. Resulting plans are readable working documents that provide practical guidance to every aspect of the business.

We look forward to accelerating your performance with Adaptive Planning. Contact us soon!