It is still the first week of January 2024. Here are 5 tools to help develop your strategy for 2024 and onwards.
The tools will help you to:
- Ensure a quality information supply
- Develop scenario prompts
- Frame your strategic box
- Map your current and future business model
- Set a quarterly focus
Develop your information dashboard
Rubbish in, rubbish out. Develop an information dashboard and increase the quality of your information supply. Pick several sources, such as for example:
- Google Alert
- Singularity University
- TED
- Stanford
- MIT review
- Harvard Business Review
- Science Alert
- Futurism
- Etc.
Spend 5 minutes every morning to scan the alerts in your mailbox. It will help you keep up to date and spot opportunities and threats, and the dashboard will make you a much better strategist.
Create scenario prompts
Translate information that is relevant to the organisation into scenario prompts. Discuss these with your team regularly. Consider the impact and formulate responses.
Design a strategic filter
Design a strategy lens to guide your decision-making. The key parameters are vision, purpose, values, passion, positioning and resourcing. Express them as statements.
- Where will the organisation be in 1-3-5-10 years from now?
- Why do you exist?
- What are the ten guiding principles
- What is the organisation passionate about?
- How do you want to be perceived in the marketplace?
- Quantify the resources that are available to you (time, money, network, knowledge, etc)
Make sure everyone in your organisation is agreed on the six statements.
4. Apply reverse attribute listing
Attribute listing is a technique where you split your organisation into the smallest parts possible and start answering the questions below per individual part of the business.
- Is there a story?
- How does it add to the experience of our offering?
- Is it a differentiator?
- Is it core?
- Can we outsource it?
- Can it be removed?
- What technology can we apply now?
- What technology is available in 2-5-10 years that could be applied?
- What emotions are triggered?
- Does it have a negative or positive climate impact?
- Is it circular?
- Can we use it as a talk trigger?
- Can we visualise it (video, VR)?
- Can it be digitised?
- Can it become a distribution channel?
- How quick or slow is it?
- Does it add to the friction?
- How much does it cost?
- How much does it add to the profit?
- How does it add to ZMOT, FMOT, SMOT, and UMOT?
Attribute listing is a perfect tool to help you analyse your organisation and develop future business models. Combine this with the scenario prompts.
5. Translate the above into one single focus per quarter
Combine the focus with a number of numeral targets. Agree the rewards if successful in acheiving the targets.
Result
As you can see, the cadence per tool is different (daily, monthly, quarterly and annually). Applying these tools will make your organisation more situationally aware, adaptable and resilient. If you need help, drop me a line or schedule a call.
