Association for Strategic Planning highlights – Part 2

Citation

Sterling, J. (2013), "Association for Strategic Planning highlights – Part 2", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 41 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-07-2013-0055

Association for Strategic Planning highlights – Part 2

Article Type: Conference report From: Strategy & Leadership, Volume 41, Issue 6

This report on the Association for Strategic Planning’s annual international conference in Atlanta looks at highlights from the concurrent break-out sessions and the sessions focused on non-profit strategy.

Break-out presentation highlights

Break-out presentations followed four tracks: strategic innovation; organizational performance and alignment; shared value; and tips/tools/techniques. Some insights from the sessions:

Diane Meister, Founder, Meridian Associates, Inc. and Herb Rubenstein, President, Sustainable Business Group – "The essential role of scenario planning in strategic planning today"

This presentation, the most highly rated break-out session at the conference, was a collaboration of Diane Meister and Herb Rubenstein.

In Meister’s delivery, she made the case that in an era of disruptive innovation, rapidly changing markets, and heightened uncertainty, scenario planning is an invaluable tool in the context of strategy development. Her recommended approach to scenario-based planning built on methods developed at Royal Dutch Shell by Peter Schwartz and others, which she translated into three main points:

1. Focus on the primary – top three to five – strategic risks facing the business.

2. Identify both the potential impact of those strategic risks and their likelihood of occurring.

3. Employ a strategic options approach to the high impact risks – including making small "bets" to keep strategic options open and identifying trigger points that warrant more aggressive pursuit of selected options.

This focus on strategic risks and strategic options makes scenario planning a more pragmatic tool for middle market practitioners, she believes. Meister suggested a few additional best practices for practitioners implementing the scenario development process:

*Limit the horizon for scenario development to three to ten years (rather than Shell’s 40 year horizon) – shorter horizons being more actionable from a strategic options perspective.

* Focus less on the details of the scenarios themselves and more on the strategic risks, strategic options, and the triggers that lead to investing more heavily in selected options.

* Position strategic planning in the context of enterprise risk management – ensuring the strategic plan enhances the organization’s ability to manage market based risks.

Jerry Dilettuso, Partner, Newport Board Group – "All about value"

Jerry Dilettuso’s presentation covered "The immutable laws of value." The presentation went well beyond well-known measures of shareholder value, such as discounted cash flow and enterprise valuation. He suggested that practitioners:

* Focus on "consumption value," defined as the premium customers pay over costs or EBIT/Expenses – the ratio of operating income to expenses. He notes that consumption value tends to be highest when both market need and scarcity are high – and that both need and scarcity can be created.

* Examples of high consumption value included: the rising value at Apple – successively more valuable as the iPod, iPhone and iPad were introduced; and the most versus the least valuable NFL franchises – the most valuable have created higher perceived need and scarcity.

* Look for value created by delivering "solution experiences." Mr Dilettuso notes that every product is both a solution and an experience. Thus, good strategy that creates value considers both.

Gerald (Gary) Bush, Coach and Advisor – "Talk of strategy"

Gary Bush’s presentation focused on driving successful strategy implementation through organizational alignment. He offered three related recommendations:

* Ensure that strategy development and implementation engage "the whole system." Effective implementation requires enduring cross-functional collaboration.

* Pursue "effective governance" of the strategy development process. Bush emphasized the point that strategy development and ongoing implementation is a process and should not be treated like an event. His recommended approach to "effective governance" is similar conceptually to a stage-gate process that builds buy-in and understanding of key stakeholders at each step of the strategy development process.

* Develop a "strategic theme for alignment." Communicate clearly and effectively what the organization is doing (and what it is not doing) in the context of the strategy and its implementation.

Michael Jordan, President, Business Model Group, Inc. – "The business model as a tool for strategic innovation and execution"

Michael Jordan framed his presentation in the context of financial services consultant Alexander Osterwalder’s "Business Model Canvas." Jordan highlighted two strong bridges between business model innovation and strategic planning.

* Jordan noted that the business model canvas’ focus on value proposition and customer needs aligns well with Clayton Christensen’s and Michael Raynor’s innovation models (as elaborated in their books Innovator’s Dilemma and Innovator’s Solution). By incorporating "jobs to be done" research in developing solutions for customers, use of the business model canvas can tap a rich vein of conceptual thinking on strategy.

* More broadly, Jordan made the case that wherever a business model analysis leads an organization to change its fundamental model, traditional approaches to strategic planning and tactical implementation are an ideal means of crafting the roadmap between the current business model and the desired future model.

ASP becoming a resource for expertise on non-profit strategy

The conference also highlighted ASP’s greater participation in the field of non-profit strategic planning. The two feature presentations were:

Luncheon presentation: "Evidence on why strategic planning is vital to success for non-profits and what they do to make it so"

Margaret F. Reid, Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, University of Arkansas; Denise McNerney, President and CEO, iBossWell, Inc.; Dominic Perri, Principal Consultant, Essential Conversations Group jointly presented the results of research into non-profit strategic planning jointly sponsored by the ASP and the University of Arkansas. Highlights of their findings include the following:

1. Successful organizations make strategic planning a consistent/routine periodic process, and not just something they do in times of crisis, or because a funder requires it.

2. High-success non-profits are far more likely to engage in a full range of planning preparation activities, including looking at industry trends and their external environment, as well as internal strengths and weaknesses.

3. Less successful organizations are challenged by a lack of leadership support and have more difficulty in making the tough choices strategic planning can demand.

4. To better position themselves to work through common challenges encountered during plan development, leaders should:

* gather input from key stakeholders;

* focus on making the goals, objectives, and other content concise and understandable for planning participants;

* communicate how the plan will lead to action; and

* carefully define expectations and the planning process on the front end.

Findings relative to plan implementation:

* Evidence clearly supports the value of maintaining consistent/routine and explicit plan implementation practices, including assessing progress to plan goals/objectives/metrics and reporting to key stakeholders.

* Since evidence indicates that high-success non-profits are more disciplined in conducting systematic implementation practices, staff and board leaders must put reasonable processes for assessment and reporting into place, and keep in mind that highly successful non-profits do this three to four times per year.

* All organizations face implementation challenges; it is crucial to keep these higher occurring challenges in mind and position the organization to deal with and minimize them.

Breakfast Award Presentation – Richard Goodman Award for Excellence in Strategic Planning – San Diego Zoo Global

Beth Branning, Corporate Director of Vision, Innovation and Strategy, San Diego Zoo Global accepted the Goodman Award on behalf of the zoo. Ms Branning noted the sustained investment the zoo has since made in strategic planning and management – an approach highly consistent with the findings of the non-profit research reported on at the conference.

John Sterling
Partner with Sterling Strategies, LLC, a consulting firm located in the Chicago area that advises on strategic planning and strategy implementation (jsterling@sterlingstrat.com). Part 1 of his coverage of the ASP conference appeared in Strategy & Leadership Vol. 41, No. 5.