How do you evaluate the effectiveness and impact of scenario planning tools on your projects and outcomes?

There are three control methods that I find useful. The first, in addition to the scenario planning, is to perform a pre-mortem and a postmortem. This process works through the things that we could imagine affecting the project and then an analysis at the end of the project to understand what we had learned. Secondly, scenario planning works best when you have "use cases" that you use in the scenario planning that can be reevaluated throughout the program. The third is the use of the PESTEL [political, economical, social, technical, environmental, legal] categories and ensure that all six categories are included, or at least considered, in your scenarios.

One of the biggest challenges in scenario planning (and any tool used in it) is having sufficient wisdom and experience to ask the bigger questions around a proposed scenario that affect the organization as a whole. These include impacts on mission and vision, internal and external marketing, shifts in the responsibilities and accountabilities of departments, staff and systems that are tangental to the project, among others. This perhaps requires an expansion of consideration of 'unintended consequences'. What is good for one department or one function often poses problems for another group/function that already has established sets of goals and responsibilities. So, simply defining objectives and criteria ignores the greater impacts.

> compare project outcomes & KPIs between engagements that utilized scenario planning versus more traditional forecasting > review the accuracy of projections and validity of assumptions used in scenarios versus actual results > surveying leadership teams on their perception of strategic preparedness for various scenarios and contingencies before & after exercises > assess organizational agility in responding to disruptions that were anticipated through scenario planning > evaluate decision quality - are choices made factoring in scenario insights superior to more narrowly focused decisions? еvaluating both qualitativе and quantifiablе outcomеs validatеs thе bеnеfits of scеnario planning and hеlps rеfinе approachеs

It's wonderful to have data points, but many organizational elements such as overall morale, employee satisfaction, degree of internal engagement and communications, and other soft elements are difficult if not impossible to measure. And when they are measured, it is often in reaction to adverse developments (unintended negative consequences). So, the scenario may be a success on one level, but a major loss overall due to the human factors noted above.

It's common knowledge that most acquisitions fail to achieve their stated objectives. It's essential that any significant business change be vetted in terms of alignments with stated mission, vision, core values, impacts on primary and secondary resources, etc. Also, in implementing any change there needs to be an identified point person to resolve 'unforeseen' issues and complications that are sure to arise. There also needs to be appropriate sharing of progress and/or challenges so that everyone remains engaged. Lastly, there needs to be a great respect for WIIFM - What's in it for me. All constituents need to see why the change will benefit them very specifically. Absent the above, I've seen acquisitions implode on day 2 post closing.