The Digital Transformation of Strategic Planning

By: Christopher Carter

In her article “Has VUCA killed strategy?" *, Caroline Burns strongly argues that we need to redefine or repurpose the role of corporate strategy to be more practical for leaders and organizations today, proposing a paradigm shift to strategic foresight (developing a clear vision and principles, using a future-oriented stakeholder-driven approach) and strategic flexibility (driving the execution of critical initiatives while maintaining a degree of elasticity).

While I agree wholeheartedly with Caroline, she focuses more on the “what” of strategy. What we also need to change is the “how” of strategy-making.

Traditional strategic planning is methodical, often time-intensive, and relies heavily on in-person collaboration and meetings, with a focus on long-term, comprehensive planning cycles. Typically, a consultant is engaged to develop an environmental scan and conduct stakeholder consultations, leading up to a strategic planning event (a one- or two-day retreat) during which the results of the scan and consultations were presented and a series of discussions were facilitated. While we may be feeling somewhat nostalgic for in-person meetings due to the pandemic, our experience tells us that perhaps these single grand events weren’t actually optimal in terms of developing an impactful and inclusive strategy. Furthermore, they placed undue significant pressure on the group to get it all done at once.

Expecting a great adaptive strategy that has significant buy-in to emerge from a traditionally structured and facilitated process is simply not reasonable.

Working as a consultant to the public and non-profit sectors in Canada, I see many clients saying that they want to approach strategy-making differently, but subsequently struggle with actually doing so. Over the past four years, I’ve had the opportunity to help some clients follow a different approach to strategy-making, one that is more collaborative, more inclusive and more digital. As with so many things in our work and personal lives, the pandemic also disrupted traditional strategic planning by necessitating a rapid shift to digital modes of operation, demanding greater flexibility and adaptability in strategy formulation, and prompting a profound re-evaluation of organizational priorities in response to an uncertain and rapidly evolving global landscape.

Making the shift requires no less than the digital transformation of strategic planning.

Forced to challenge my assumptions of what good strategic planning looks like, I re-examined the process and imagined what could be different by embracing the possibilities of digital tools, while adhering to my long-held principles about the need for strategy-making to be collaborative and stakeholder-driven. I reframed the traditional strategic planning “retreat” as a series of well-designed and well-facilitated interactions with stakeholders, which provides maximum flexibility and optimized results.

A well-designed and well-facilitated digitally enabled approach provides time for reflection while still driving a process with a requisite sense of urgency that honours people’s time. The key is to make full use of synchronous and asynchronous activities, where synchronous is when we meet as a group (what a colleague called “OurTime”) and asynchronous is when participants work individually (“MyTime”). Examples of MyTime activities include reading materials before an OurTime meeting, brainstorming answers to pre-meeting questions (and commenting on what others have contributed), and rating/voting on priorities and ideas previously generated by the group.

It’s important to note that “digital” does not automatically mean “virtual”. While the desire to meet in person is understandably growing over time as the pandemic winds down, the opportunity to meet in person needs to be tempered with the reality of the continued disruption due to other community ailments and the significant cost of meeting. Applying the principles of maximum inclusivity leads to the conclusion that all interactions should be designed to be delivered in a hybrid mode, which allows for maximum flexibility. This means using technology to level the participation playing field, like using digital brainstorming and voting tools for in-person and virtual meetings.

What does good digital facilitation look and feel like as a participant? Whereas a Zoom or Teams meeting can be a very passive experience, well-designed digital stakeholder interactions are:

• immersive and impactful, in which participants brainstorm ideas, build and comment on each other’s ideas, conduct rating and voting exercises to distil the list to the best ideas, and drive a collective sense of direction; and 
• Credible and psychologically safe in which diverse stakeholders engage in ways that are transparent both in their execution and reporting, and focus more on open dialogue to deepen and broaden understanding.

I’ve learned that a key to successfully using any of these tools is to embed their use right from the start, using simpler exercises during initial interactions and moving to more sophisticated uses as the process unfolds. The benefits of using digital interaction tools to enable your strategic planning process include: 

• Clarity: Stakeholders and decision-makers alike are focused together on achieving a shared vision and strategy for the organization. 
• Efficiency: Less time is spent in meetings (along with the ability to work asynchronously), yet deeper insights, perspectives, and ideas are gained. Decision churn is eliminated, saving resources while improving outcomes. 
• Agility: Shorter cycle times are needed to collect insights; open debating and vetting reveal the respective value of alternatives sooner; continuous (re-)assessment against stated purpose allows faster pivots when required; and final directions are created with greater confidence that leads to faster execution. 
• Engagement: More of the right people participating in the right activities plus contributing their knowledge and opinions increases decision quality. Stakeholder involvement promotes deeper commitment and accelerates execution. 
• Alignment & Trust: Transparent and inclusive processes build trust and buy-in for the decision. Also supports efficiency, agility, and speed to market. 
• Confidence: Execution proceeds with confidence and commitment because stakeholders are aligned, and everyone knows how the quality decision was made. 

There’s no shortage of digital tools in the market that can be leveraged, and I’ve experimented with many of them. While I’m always on the lookout for tools that align with my ways of working with clients (and somewhat obsessed with the potential of generative AI in facilitation), here’s my current “go-to” digital toolbox:

• Stormz (http://www.stormz.me/): When facilitating groups, from small to large, with brainstorming ideas (SWOT anyone?), condensing and selecting ideas through rating and voting, and elaborating ideas (like in action planning.
• Mentimeter (www.mentimeter.com): When conducting interactive, virtual town halls and large-group meetings.
• Transparent Choice (www.transparentchoice.com): When decisions need to be more highly structured, such as for procurement or portfolio decisions.
• Miro (www.miro.com): When designing a new process or customer experience.
• ChatGPT (https://chatgpt.com/): For synthesizing interviews, clustering ideas and creating punchy content – the potential for generative AI is practically limitless, but it has to be managed carefully.

Each of these tools has strengths and weaknesses – they are not perfect, by any means. But they are important building blocks for implementing a hybrid approach to strategic planning, by combining asynchronous and synchronous work and enabling a more flexible, inclusive, and efficient planning process. It harnesses the strengths of both individual and collaborative work, making it well-suited to the diverse and dynamic nature of modern organizations.

The journey towards the digital transformation of strategic planning is not just about adopting new technologies; it's about embracing a new paradigm of inclusivity, agility, and engagement. As we navigate this evolving landscape, the focus must remain on harnessing digital tools not as ends in themselves but as means to foster deeper collaboration, sharper insights, and more resilient strategies. The future of strategic planning lies in our ability to blend technology with human insight, creating a process that is as dynamic and adaptable as the world it seeks to navigate. As we continue to explore and integrate these digital frontiers, the potential for transformative impact on our organizations and the communities they serve is boundless.

And I hope that Caroline Burns would agree with me that you need to be as innovative about the “how” of strategy-making as the strategy itself. As included as the last maxim in Myron’s Maxims, the process you use is the future you get!