Your Long-Range Plan is Invalid. Now What?

By David Matheson, SmartOrg

The game has changed

Among the many things disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic is your organization’s long-range plan. Those carefully negotiated assumptions that informed your projections of growth and guided your innovation and R&D budgets have been exposed as the comforting fictions we always knew they were. Fundamentally, the future is not a set of assumptions; it is uncertain. Each of us is confronted not only with the need to replan, but to change how we plan: to rethink our portfolio and make the choices that will drive our company to thrive and grow no matter how our post-pandemic world works out.

There isn’t a pat answer for what to do next. 

Each organization has experienced different changes, and each industry has had its trajectory altered in different ways. Some have had massive cash flow shocks as their businesses have nearly stopped due to shelter-in-place; others have had to scramble to produce protective equipment. Shelter-in-place has demonstrated how much can be done online, calling into question many physically-based opportunities. Every executive I have talked to has their own version of change and disruption.

Amidst all this variety, one thing is common: a lot of opportunities and projects need to be rethought. It is human nature to hope we can just pick up more or less where we left off and thrive in our past pattern of success. But that temptation is misguided.

Certainly, some projects can and should pick up more or less where they left off. But other projects need to be abandoned or dramatically rethought. How many of each type do you face? In a recent poll, we found that on average 47% of projects in the growth portfolio need rethinking. Some companies face as much of 80% of their portfolio that need rethinking! When that many projects are in play, priorities will undoubtedly shift, perhaps even among the seemingly obvious opportunities.

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