What are the most effective ways to communicate scenario planning results to senior management?

1 Know your audience

Before you start creating your presentation, you need to understand who you are talking to and what they expect from you. What are their main concerns, questions, and goals? How familiar are they with scenario planning and the concepts involved? How much detail and technicality do they need or want? How do they prefer to receive information: visually, verbally, or numerically? By knowing your audience, you can tailor your presentation to their needs and preferences, and avoid unnecessary jargon, data, or explanations.

2 Define your scenarios

One of the most important steps in communicating your scenario planning results is to define your scenarios clearly and consistently. You should explain the logic and assumptions behind each scenario, how they differ from each other, and how they relate to the current situation and the future outlook. You should also label your scenarios with descriptive and memorable names, such as best case, worst case, base case, or alternative case. This will help your audience to follow your analysis and compare the results across different scenarios.

3 Highlight the key insights

Once you have defined your scenarios, you should focus on the key insights and implications that emerge from your analysis. You should not overwhelm your audience with too much data or information, but rather summarize the main findings and trends that are relevant and meaningful for them. You should also use charts, graphs, tables, or other visual aids to illustrate your points and make them easier to understand. For example, you could use a tornado chart to show the sensitivity of your financial metrics to different variables, or a spider chart to compare the performance of your scenarios along different dimensions.

4 Provide recommendations and actions

After you have presented your key insights, you should provide some recommendations and actions that your audience can take based on your scenario planning results. You should not just state what you think they should do, but also explain why and how they should do it. You should also consider the risks, opportunities, and trade-offs involved in each option, and how they align with your strategic objectives and priorities. By providing recommendations and actions, you can show your audience that you have thought through the implications of your analysis and that you have a plan to deal with different scenarios.