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Adaptive Planning is a new approach to planning that combines the best qualities of strategic planning with the important principles of adaptive leadership.  Some say strategic planning is a dying methodology.  Organizations invest half a year in a huge effort to gather information and create a plan that often feels irrelevant a year from when it was created.  So why invest all that time and money if the plan is going to have to change?

The reason this sentiment has been growing is that we are in a digital revolution.  Like the Industrial Revolution before it, the digital revolution is completely changing how we do business.  Our ability to get things done has hit warp speed, and the information we need to do our jobs is suddenly available whenever we want it.  As a result, the world is changing more rapidly than ever before – in fact, change feels exponential because of the viral nature of the internet and digital technology.

We have been giving this issue a lot of thought.  The frustration with the “old model” of strategic planning that we hear from our clients has caused us to step back and question ourselves.  Why do we think strategic planning is valuable?  In what ways is it no longer working?  How can we improve the process and product to make them more relevant to organizations?

Our answer is Adaptive Planning, a process that is:

• data-driven so decisions are based on good information;
• outward looking, takes into consideration the external context
• focus on the creation of long-term strategies and goals
• acknowledges the pace of change and includes a monitoring system for external factors on which strategies were based
• builds in a re-evaluation of strategies in one year, based on the monitoring of the external information
• ultimately builds the organization’s capacity to revise and redesign strategy when necessary

We’ve refined our planning process so it uses the talents inside the organization and, drawing on a coaching model, builds the capacity of those inside the organization to know how and when to shift strategies.

Our environment is in constant flux.  With the advent of social media, the concept of “real time” takes on a whole new meaning.  Change is instant, and it’s viral.  Consultants like us, whose business is to help organizations plan effectively, are thinking and talking about new models of planning that incorporate this focus on rapid change and adaptivity.  Some say the old strategic planning models are dying because they assume the external environment will be static for 3 years.  That has become a preposterous assumption.  Instead, there is an emerging focus on what it means to be adaptive leader – one who drives change and also seizes opportunities for change.  It describes a person who is both flexible and strategic.

We scramble to stay ahead of this viral trend, but we had to laugh the other day as we came across this quote about Buddhism.  Our ideas aren’t new after all…

“Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.”

- Daisaku Ikeda, Japanese Buddhist and Peace Activist