Agile Strategic Planning in a COVID-19 World
Many organizations say that they are agile. The next eighteen months will identify those who truly are. As states across the country develop plans for re-opening their economies, organizations should remember California Governor Gavin Newsom’s dimmer switch analogy. Like getting the lighting exactly right using a dimmer switch, transitioning to less restrictive measures will require constant adjustment. Based on data, leaders need to respond to changing conditions quickly, ensuring a balance between public safety and economic activity. In other words, leveraging an agile strategic planning approach.
The agile approach to strategic planning – also called the adaptive approach – emphasizes speed in identifying opportunities, scaling products and services, and changing direction. It is most applicable in environments that are unpredictable and constantly changing, like our current (and foreseeable) situation with the COVID-19 pandemic. While this environment presents an opportunity for organizations to shift to this approach, organizations also should avoid these common mistakes:
Shifting to an agile approach to strategic planning generally requires longer-term organizational transformation. Still, there are some actions an organization can take in the short-term:
Develop a learning agenda: Developing deeper insights starts with examining an organization’s data. Understand what data is collected and its uses while also determining what data can be collected. Further, analyze data through different lenses to find new information (e.g., patterns, trends, etc.) to help inform future strategy.
Communicate clear milestones for the organization: Instead of setting goals, leadership needs to set overall strategic direction. This enables the organization to quickly pivot to changing conditions while also maximizing the use of limited resources. Additionally, leverage a performance management framework – like OKRs – that aligns to this approach to aid in decision-making.
Empower managers and staff to act: Facebook recently announced employees can work remotely through the summer and the company will not hold employee gatherings exceeding 50 people. In a time when workforce is dispersed and working remotely, an organization can start to decentralize decision-making to employees who are closest to the work, thus reducing the time it takes to take meaningful action.
Model the culture that drive success: Because strategy and operations are closely intertwined in an agile organization, leadership must encourage agile behaviors for this approach to be successful. Admittedly, this is a difficult task; it requires leadership to accept risk, debate, and failure. However, promoting these behaviors now will accelerate an organization’s strategic planning in the long-term to being nimbler and more responsive.
As organizations plan for life after sheltering-in-place and beyond, employing agile strategic planning needs to be a priority. Doing so could mean the difference between future stability and economic uncertainty.