Seven Practices for Planning During Uncertain Times
When the path forward contains unexpected, variable conditions or the destination is puzzling, executives need to employ strategies intended for turbulent situations. Here are seven practices that work:
Understand your mission
The road ahead may twist and turn. But a good sense of direction keeps you on track. Describe in simple, compelling, language the objective the team needs to strive for in the current situation. A financial company set its mission to increase consumer financial confidence. A software company reset its 2020 mission to help its customers stabilize. In uncertain times, you cannot predict the timing or mechanics of mission achievement. Team actions can’t be scripted. However, if the North Star is clear, the mission will steer the team.
Select smart, incremental, decision-waypoints
Since you will be unable to make long-term plans accurately, take smaller, low-risk steps. Hinge planning on milestones versus calendars. Aim for steps that will improve your insight into what is ahead. A global events team at a large tech company meets daily to identify when the next big decision point is needed for the events in its portfolio. A large down payment on a hotel block for an October partner event in Germany is coming up. How confident does the team feel about making that bet now? Make your best decision, learn from the results, and move on.
Diligently monitor and communicate what you learn
Seek new information from a variety of sources. Maybe you only have a vague picture of the future – share what you have anyway. In the absence of information, people tend to make stuff up (often more pessimistic than reality). Communication builds confidence which leads to action. Transparency with executives and working teams is key so that decisions can be made quickly and as accurately as possible. Leaders should stay visible. Increase the cadence of communications such as short, daily, videoconferencing “stand-ups” and actively updated collaborative project management sites. One CMO sends the entire team – from the CEO on down - a daily email noting all significant changes.
Set priorities
If budget cuts or hard choices become necessary, results will be optimal if you know your priorities. Rather than cutting across the board, eliminating what is easy, or reacting to opinions, ask two questions of every option. First, how much will this program contribute to our mission? Second, how important is it that we act now? Give highest priority to programs that are both strategic and imperative. Examples include customer communications, critical campaigns, and building needed capabilities. Every company also has a few programs that are imperative – there is a high risk if you don’t do them – but they hardly contribute to the mission. You may need to support a declining product to meet a revenue goal but there is no advantage to overachieving. Invest minimally. However, try to make small but steady progress on programs that are strategic but not urgent. The rewards will be outstanding. Don’t waste resources on programs that are neither strategic nor urgent. Crises can provide air cover to cut programs that are too political to cut during normal times.
Keep cross-functional teams working together
Cross-functional teams broaden perspective, accelerate decision-making, improve problem solving, and expand capability. Avoid having silos make decisions. High impact decisions will need a team consisting of the CEO, the CMO, head of sales, and possibly the CFO and legal executive. At the next level, it will be the CMO and the marketing leadership team. Several working teams for specific programs will be also needed. Agree on the factors that escalate decisions. Meet frequently and take care to ensure everyone stays in sync.
Plan out scenarios
The executive team should develop a series of planning scenarios based on possible outcomes. This exercise is not something to delegate to junior team members. Imagine a variety of situations (don't just assume the most probable) and propose the best set of responses to each one. Rank the scenarios in order of probability. Factor in the severity of the impact. Data will be spotty for now. Avoid being overly dependent on the data, while you are imagining, ranking, and factoring. Collect information and opinions from multiple sources and continually update your plans and probabilities as you learn more.
Assume an agile attitude
Set expectations with executives and team members that the plan will be updated frequently for this year, certainly, but also beyond. Use this situation as motivation to gain more expertise in agile-type management. Instead of hoping that things will go back to "normal," accept that global connectivity and the speed of digital guarantee future turbulence of one kind or another. Calendars will continue to shift according to need and priority. Budgets will be rented, not owned, and allocated as appropriate. KPIs will be adjusted quarterly or at appropriate milestones. The current pain will eventually pass. The agile attitude should be here to stay. Turbulence also opens doors for innovation and opportunity.
A version of this article was first published on the LinkedIn website.