How can complexity thinking enhance your strategic planning?

It's imperative to understand the inherent complexity in any project/program assignment, since only then can one truly put plans in place that will accurately reflect the real critical path to achieving one's objectives. If we cannot unravel the complexities or cannot see the not so obvious interdependencies at play, we run the risk that our strategic and tactical plans are flawed from the outset! Sometimes it can be of great benefit for the Project Manager or Program Manager to insist upon a "discovery phase" during pre-sales cycles such that we allow an opportunity for stakeholders, including the client organization (plus client's 3PP partners) to convene for a few days and carefully map out all complex interdependencies. ROI can be 10x!

Complexity can make any aspect of a project difficult and unpredictable and will be unaccounted for in many cases, especially by stakeholders and customers. One important mitigation technique is to define the objective and scope and what they are not! That way, there are fewer opportunities to assume outcomes that never were intended. Use a RAID log (Risks, Actions, Issues, and Decisions) to maximize ongoing transparency in the face of change and expectation management.

In my experience, even the most complex problems, wicked problems really with no ‘good’ solution but least worst option, are not totally complex. There are parts that may be complicated and some areas that are quite clearly linear (ie simple). I have found the ‘cynefin’ framework a helpful way to segment parts of the overall problem. It helps to focus on what is actually complex and needs a dynamic and agile strategy and what sub-elements can be planned for in a more straightforward way. They may well be related but most likely in a predictable manner. By breaking down the overall problem you can focus on the actually complex elements and their relationships.

There are some wisdom that can play a positive role here: Prevention is better than a cure Reagan addressing Gorbachev: "Trust but verify.' Contingency plan should be parallel to building and managing strategic planning and project management. Prospective analysis based on historical trends and operational models can serve as the basis of reference and "resources to be used" in case of unpredictable and uncontrollable events, such as wars, natural disasters, epidemics, bankruptcies, litigation, tech issues, and other hurdles of existence and human interactions with its surrounding communities and environment. Soldiers prepare themselves during Peacetime and so do Corporations and Businesses, to be prepared when the calm is dominating.

Strategic Planning. The words themselves invite opportunities for misunderstandings. A plan is not a strategy! Think about the definitions. A strategy is the logic for how the company will create value for its target markets. - Which customers, what products, how to monetize, and why will the product be the customer's choice? The strategy will lead to the ability to define goals. The detailed steps needed to reach the goals is the plan. - Which resources will do what to deliver the goal, when, and how is it measured? Ask yourself: Do we really have a strategy or just a plan?

While running product management for the company's training and license service platform for scuba divers globally, news about something that eventually got named COVID started to appear. Do we have to change the roadmap? How is business being impacted in the travel-sensitive market of diving and tourism? Is this blowing over in a couple of months? Instead of having to guess at the future, I devised three scenarios with early indicators of each so that I didn't have to argue the outcome per se but let stakeholders see for themselves where this might be heading based on detected indicators. Scenario-based planning made some hard choices easier, and they were taken deliberately, not in panic.