Scenario Planning

A pioneer in business war gaming and an expert in developing custom simulation technologies for business and other organizations, Mark also presents highly interactive, highly rated, downright-fun workshops on strategy and strategic thinking, suitable for companies and conferences. He consults with Fortune 500 companies around the world, lectures at conferences and universities, and writes frequently on business and marketing strategy. This Powernoodle Solution was developed with the help of Powernoodle Expert: Mark Chussil 2 Mark Chussil is Founder and CEO of Advanced Competitive Strategies, Inc.

About Powernoodle With Powernoodle, your group will move through a structured process for sharing ideas, filtering and evaluating them to create a prioritized action plan.  Flexible and customisable for in-person or online collaboration.  Anonymous input creates a rich, inclusive, honest discussion.  Commitment to decision is high. This document will help you design a Powernoodle for scenario planning. 3

Scenario planning recognises that companies operate in dynamic environments. It is not possible to predict which changes will affect your company at which time. However, it is possible to:  Imagine the many changes that might occur in your environment and assess your level of resilience.  Imagine what might happen in your world that could affect your company.  Imagine how your company could or should react.  Identify areas of weakness and opportunity.  Build flexibility and resilience into your planning. What is Scenario Planning? 4

Before you can guide your group through the Powernoodle, it is important to understand the trends in your environment and think about how they might combine to affect you. By identifying basic trends and uncertainties, your group can construct a series of scenarios against which you can test your strategy. Scenario Planning 5

The Powernoodle Organizer’s job The Organizer creates the session, invites Participants, and leads the group through the Powernoodle steps: Brainstorm, Categorize, Combine, Vote, Rate, Prioritize, and Action Plan. Depending on the session’s purpose, the Organizer is able to customize the Powernoodle as needed. Every Powernoodle creates a Powernoodle Report, a complete record of the decision-making trail in a downloadable spreadsheet. 6

An In-House Team Leader? Advantages:  Holds valuable content knowledge  Understands your organization and how it operates Disadvantages:  Might be too busy organizing the sessions to participate fully  May not recognize biases An Outside Facilitator? Advantages:  Brings objectivity  Adds specialized facilitation knowledge - can keep the group on track and on time  Allows all participants to focus on the discussion Disadvantages:  Will need some background preparation 7 Select your Organizer

To get started, the Organizer:  Creates the Powernoodle Session.  Creates a scenario planning Powernoodle Question: What can we imagine happening internally or externally that would put the company at risk?  Invites all participants via into the Powernoodle Session. Your Powernoodle session 8 Looking for more detailed directions? Watch the Organizer Training Series videos Looking for more detailed directions? Watch the Organizer Training Series videos

9 Explain the purpose of the session. This will also appear on the Agenda and the Invitation to Participants. Your group can work on one or several related questions in a session. List of invited Participants. The Organizer’s Session Room

Brainstorm: Consider the Scenario Planning question and contribute ideas. Comment on everyone’s ideas. Rate: Evaluate each idea on three criteria with 0 = strongly disagree and 10 = strongly agree. This is likely to occur. This will have a high impact level if it does occur. We are unprepared for this if it does occur. Prioritize: Plan for the highest-rated scenarios using the following standard: “Knowing what I know today, this is how I would allocate our resources to increase our preparedness.” Scenario Planning decision- making process 10

11 Intuitive slider rating is customised by Organizer. Rating gives a nuanced view of the impact of each risk.

The Organizer generates the Powernoodle Report. The Report shows how the group evaluated the ideas to reach their decisions..  The Report is created automatically after your session ends.  It is available in spreadsheet format for you and your participants.  It captures every discussion thread for future reference and action. Scenario Planning Next Steps 12

For detailed examples and directions, you can:  Watch the Powernoodle Organizer Training Series videos.  Log in and visit the Help section.  Contact us at  Join the user groups online. Powernoodle help and support 13

14 Website: Blog: LinkedIn profile: Sample speech: “Why Strategies Fail,” delivered to the Chief Strategy Officer Summit in New York City, December 2011 (30 minutes, non-commercial) Mark Chussil, Founder, CEO of Advanced Competitive Strategies, Inc.

Powernoodle Template Scenario Planning by Mark Chussil and Powernoodle Inc is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at and