Plan for the future while delivering today
Use foresight and planning horizons to connect near-term commitments with longer-term possibilities.
Near-term delivery and longer-term exploration compete for the same attention, people and resources. If every decision favours the next deadline, future options can disappear. If distant possibilities never connect to present choices, foresight becomes an interesting presentation.
Strategic foresight explores multiple possible futures to inform decisions; it does not promise to predict one correct future. The practical task is to decide what to do now, what to prepare and what to watch.
Separate the time horizon from the kind of work.
A planning horizon is the period your decision needs to consider. Choose it to reflect the issue: a software release, a skills programme and a manufacturing investment can require very different time spans.
The Three Horizons of Growth framework offers a related way to examine the portfolio: maintaining the core business, building emerging businesses and developing options for future growth. It calls for attention to all three together. These are not universal “year one, year three, year five” delivery buckets.
A manufacturer has firm commitments to improve the reliability of today's products. It is also testing a service subscription and exploring whether customers may eventually buy availability rather than equipment.
Reliability work needs delivery measures. The subscription trial needs evidence about uptake, service costs and retention. The longer-term option needs learning about customer behaviour and the capabilities it would require. All can need work this quarter, even though their commitments and uncertainties differ.
Connect scenarios to today's roadmap.
Choose one consequential uncertainty, such as the speed of customer adoption or access to a critical resource. Develop a small set of contrasting, plausible situations. Examine what each would mean for the plan, rather than assigning arbitrary precision to distant dates.
IfM's work on roadmapping under uncertainty describes combining roadmapping with approaches that explore possible consequences and responses. In practice, use the roadmap to connect assumptions, dependencies and decision points across time.
Give near-term commitments suitable detail. For uncertain later work, record options, evidence needs and triggers for commitment. Longer-term does not always mean more uncertain; make the uncertainty explicit rather than inferring it from the date alone.
Review one future ambition backwards.
- What would need to be true for this ambition to be worthwhile?
- Which skills, relationships or assets take time to develop?
- What must we learn or start now to keep the option open?
- Which evidence would justify committing, changing direction or stopping?
Put the next learning action and decision point into the current plan. Review exploratory work on the quality of learning as well as its use of resources.
The Scenario Planning guide offers a way to explore alternatives. The roadmapping guide explains how to connect longer-term aims with the decisions and capabilities needed along the way.