Do's and don'ts of strategic planning; where to invest your time and what to avoid. How to get to a effective Business Plan in 10 weeks.

1. Breaking Rules
in Strategic
Planning

2. Breaking
Rules
Enhancing your decision making...in just
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A Futures Coaching initiative
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3. #1 Favour experience

Young, brainy consultants end up doing
what young brainy consultants can do:
information trawling and number
crunching

Better to employ the seen-it-all maverick
with an ability to cut-through the crap
and get to the killer insights

4. #2 Top down

The craziest idea? Having advisors
reporting into an inexperienced strategy
team

Strategy is far too important for anyone
other than the CEO and the management
team to take on

It follows that strategy consultants
should only take briefs from
this C Suite

5. #3 Find the problem

The problem is not always what it
seems

A client may be defining a 'want' but not
the underlying 'need'

Strategy consultants must develop the
art of being super blunt whilst telling the
truth in an acceptable way

Humour helps!

6. #4 Narrow the options

In recent work, a client had 15 different
strategic pathways on the table

Filtering options begins, not by facts,
but by framing

Structuring the analysis strengthens
thinking and supports hypotheses

7. #5 Use MECE

McKinsey's fact-based problem-solving
process uses MECE thinking

Standing for 'Mutually Exclusive,
Collectively Exhaustive', it's about
separating a problem into distinct,
non-overlapping issues whilst making
sure nothing is overlooked

8. #6 Avoid data overload

Collect data with a purpose

Set up hypotheses early in the process
& collect only data which will prove or
disprove them

Focus on: what assumptions need to be
true for my hypothesis to be correct

Seek answers which are directionally
correct

9. #7 No excuses

Pre-internet, it was OK not to know
Today's business plans must take

advantage of all available intelligence

Strategists can no longer rely on the
ignorance of a motivated audience

10. #8 Don't sweat the forecasts

Business Plans need numbers – just
don't get carried away

Complex discouted cash-flow
spreadsheets are next to worthless
when 5 year assumptions have no
basis other than management hope

The truth is that no one is going to
believe the forecasts so stick to an
overview of the economics of the
business and capturing its potential

11. #9 Go fast

In the good old days, a scenario planning
exercise could take companies like Shell
2 years to complete

Today, speedy strategy is possible but
requires a separation of process and task

Take time to develop the right process
and the tasks will go very fast indeed

10 weeks for a business strategy,
anyone?

12. #10 Evaluate fit

What's right & what can be implemented
by a client are two different things
entirely

“Consulting is knowing how to tailor your
advice to the optimum of what the
organization will take on board &
implement”
(Sir John Harvey Jones)

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15. Futures Coaching in October 2012
Helping a Dutch agency identify growth
opportunities & plan its strategy
Working with an international company to embed
best practices in consulting into their strategy
Continuing to define how trends will impact future
bank branch design and role
Planning a new report on trends in consumer
healthcare
Aiding my co-author with a TEDx presentation on
'Young Brains'

16. About Futures Coaching
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