It’s Time to Pre-Test Your Vision and Strategy

In recent years our research and practice at Stanford University has ask, “How can executives and leaders pre-test their foresight?”

A quick read of current headlines shows that vision and strategy have become “must-haves” in organizations across the globe. Last week, an article in Harvard Business Review asked, “Do You Have a Clear Vision for the Post-Crisis Future?” This is a message near and dear to ours hearts. The HBR writers described the path that we teach in our free Playbook for Strategic Foresight and Innovation:

Envision the Future you will deliver, then Build the Path back from that vision to today.

Or more simply:

Reach Forward, Reason Back

After finishing the HBR article (which I highly recommend), you should be asking; “Sure, and how can we test our vision and strategy?”

Our 2020 goal was to bring a new TESTING ability to your team’s vision, strategy, and decision-making. My recent conversations with friends, partners, and clients showed me that I needed to speed my goal.

Today we’re announcing the addition of vision-led war-gaming and red teaming innovation scenarios to our toolkit. In the coming weeks I’ll extend the work in our Playbook to describe how teams can build a path of strategic and tactical decisions from their envisioned future back to today. And how to test your vision and innovation path with physically located and distributed teams.

If your team is already leading in this space, please send me an email as we’d love to hear how you’re succeeding in this new future.