Indicative Scenario Planning Projects

Project Descriptions

Part One: Private Sector Projects

Professional Services Firm: Scenario Planning to Consolidate Globalization and Identify Contingencies. When the leadership of a major professional services firm decided in 1999 to globalize, a scenario-based planning approach was used to create a cohesive strategy while helping the new executive group come together. Over the course of an intense three-day executive workshop, a range of future market conditions were considered and explored. One group of executives was assigned to a scenario world characterize by the collapse of “the New Economy”. (This was 1999 and the dot.com meltdown was not yet on the horizon.) The scenario process led to an accelerated schedule of globalization (separate country firms agreeing to first align their goals and subsequently to form a single global entity); heavy investment in a flexible approach to e-Business and outsourcing activities; and the adoption of an agile organization structures. The scenario approach also led to the development of contingency plans to respond to plausible changes that could occur during the planning horizon. The CEO of the embedded consulting firm found the process so useful that he superimposed it on their planning process, which had already begun. Since then, the process has become a central part of all planning within the firm.

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