Scenario planning in Strategic Planning
Summarize
Summary of Scenario Planning in Strategic Planning
Scenario planning in Strategic Planning allows organizations to create, evaluate, and approve strategic scenarios that align with their business goals. This method provides a way to visualize different planning approaches, assess potential impacts, and make informed decisions without affecting the live plan, enabling proactive management of challenges.
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Key Features
- Scenario Creation: Organizations can simulate strategic plans to explore various approaches safely.
- In Plan Toggle: This feature allows prioritization or de-prioritization of planning items in the scenario. It is automatically enabled for items marked as Prioritized or Done within specified date ranges.
- Date Fields: Start and End dates for scenarios are auto-populated based on planning items and can be updated during the planning process. Dates outside acceptable ranges are flagged for review.
- Comparative Analysis: Scenarios can be compared side by side to evaluate differences in goal alignment and trade-offs, helping identify the best strategic approach.
Key Outcomes
By utilizing scenario planning, organizations can enhance their strategic decision-making processes. This functionality enables them to approve the most suitable scenario that meets their goals, leading to improved alignment with strategic priorities and better preparedness for potential challenges.
Create and evaluate strategic scenarios to explore different planning approaches. Approve the optimal scenario that aligns with the organizational goals and strategic priorities.
Scenario planning overview
Scenario planning in Strategic Planning enables organizations to create, evaluate, and approve the best strategic scenario that aligns with their strategic goals and intended business outcomes. This process helps in visualizing different approaches, assessing their impacts, and making informed decisions before implementing the live plan. By utilizing scenario planning, organizations can anticipate potential challenges.
What is a scenario
A scenario in Strategic Planning is a simulated version of a plan that enables you to explore a strategic approach without affecting the live plan. It provides a safe environment to prioritize items, adjust timelines, and evaluate the potential impacts of each approach.
As compared to a plan, a scenario additionally has the following:
- In Plan toggle: The In Plan toggle enables you to prioritize or de-prioritize the planning items in the scenario you’re creating. By default, when you create a scenario, the
In Plan toggle is turned on for planning items that have all of the following field values:
- Planning state as Prioritized or Done
- Start and end dates within the portfolio plan dates.
- Date fields: The Start date and End date fields for the scenario are automatically populated based on either the planned or actual start and end dates of the planning items. You can update these dates during the scenario planning process. Once the scenario is approved, the updated dates are recorded as the approved dates for the planning items. If the updated dates fall outside the acceptable range, they’re highlighted in yellow.
By comparing scenarios side by side, you can assess the differences in goal alignment and trade-offs between each scenario. This comparative analysis helps identify the scenario that best meets strategic objectives. For more information on comparing the scenarios, see Compare scenarios in Strategic Planning.
Scenario planning workflow in Strategic Planning
Using the Scenario Planning feature in Strategic Planning, you can perform the following activities:
- Create a scenario to explore different strategic approaches and business outcomes. For more information, see Create a scenario in Strategic Planning.
- Adjust and compare multiple scenarios side by side to evaluate differences in goal alignment and trade-offs. For more information, see Compare scenarios in Strategic Planning.
- Approve the best scenario that aligns with the organizational goals. For more information, see Approve a scenario in Strategic Planning.
Scenario Planning workflow overview
The scenario planning workflow involves an execution owner and a portfolio owner. The following illustration illustrates how scenario plans are created based on the planned or actual dates of planning items and how the In-plan toggle is adjusted based on the states of these planning items.
For more detailed guidance on using scenario planning to enhance your Strategic Planning process, see Optimizing planning with scenario planning in Strategic Planning.