¶ … planning is a method by which organizations can look at potential future situations and use this knowledge to improve the organization's ability to respond. Scenarios are created that test the managers to see what their strategies might be, and how they will respond. The value of scenario planning is that it can reveal blind spots in thinking, and can help managers to recognize situations before they occur, in the future, having already seen similar things during the scenario planning (NetMBA, 2010). For a business, the scenario might be anecdotal, it could be based on worst case possibilities or it can involve a combination of different scenarios.
Scenario planning can be of critical importance to organizations because it can allow for organizations to think about different types of future scenarios. Often, organizations plan for the future mainly be assuming that trends today are going to be continued in the future. Plans are not usually made for the prospect of dramatic changes in the external environment. As an example, a company may not plan for a disruptive new technology. But such technologies do occur once in a while, so in most industries it is worth running through such a scenario to see how the organization would respond. There is value in getting a sense of how the organization would handle such a scenario, and whether its capabilities in that situation are adequate. Weaknesses and vulnerabilities can be identified under scenario planning.
Scenario planning is different from other methodologies in a few key ways. First, it is not based on past events, or projections of current situations. It is based on fictional scenarios, so it does not have direct practical relevance; rather, it is a thought exercise. In that sense, it is quite different, and that is where the value lies. The value is that this technique is unique, and it gets the managers thinking in ways that they would not normally think. If the scenarios are unique, but realistic, they can be quite powerful in terms of getting the managers in the organization to examine how they think, and how they react to different situations.
Phase 5, Discussion Board 2
Scenario planning has its roots in the military, where it has been used for example to imagine a thermonuclear war. Such a situation had never occurred, so there was no basis to learn about how to deal with that type of situation, at least not based on historical precedence. But it was felt that it was necessary to try to think about what such a scenario would entail, in order to improve preparedness (NetMBA, 2010).
The concept of scenario planning was then adapted for business in the 1960s and 70s by Pierre Wack, who worked on scenario planning for Royal Dutch Shell (NetMBA, 2010). Although the oil business was fairly stable at the time, there was a massive oil shock in 1973 that created a crisis in the industry (and in society at large). Shell had already run a scenario plan on this situation, so it was able to move quickly to stabilize the company. As a result, Shell performed better than expected during the time of crisis, and the concept of scenario planning had proven to be successful, and became more widely-used.
The managers are usually brought into a single location for scenario planning, though today it could probably be done remotely. The scenario is presented. There are specific parameters, in terms of organizational capabilities, the time frame for the scenario and that sort of thing. The scenario is then run, and the managers do what they feel they need to. Afterwards, the scenario is reviewed so that the outcomes can be discussed. This is an important part of the process, because lessons need to be learned in order for the scenario planning to be useful.
Usually, within a corporation, scenario planning is something run by consultants, outside people who specialize in scenario planning. This works better, as there is not usually any department or individual in charge. The consultant would be brought in by senior management members, in order to run the scenario.
Phase 5, Discussion Board 3
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