From scenarios to decisions: making scenario planning practical
Most organisations know that the future will not follow their plan. Yet when a big decision comes up, many still work from a single base case, or from a best and a worst case. When reality drifts away from that plan, the result is endless replanning.
So how do you use scenarios to actually make better decisions?
That's the focus of our second session in the Scenario to Success series. After the strategic view of the first webinar, this session moves to tactical planning, with concrete methods and templates you can use straight away. Watch the recorded session here.
Why two scenarios are not enough
A single scenario is not scenario planning. It is a forecast. A best and a worst case is better, but everything moves together: the best case becomes the target and the worst case gets dismissed as unlikely. The future tends to be more mixed than that.
Crossing two key uncertainties, such as demand and supply, gives you three or four scenarios with no obvious "good" or "bad" one. That forces you to look for moves that hold up whichever future arrives.
Five steps from scenario to decision
Using a sales and operations planning case (how much production capacity should we commit to over the next 18 months?), the webinar walks through five steps:
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Frame the decision: what are we deciding, over which horizon, and how will we judge success?
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Sense the uncertainty: identify the key drivers and build your scenarios.
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Compare options: score each option against every scenario, not just the most likely one.
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Decide: separate what to do now (no-regret moves), what to prepare and what to activate when a signal appears.
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Monitor: track signals and triggers, so you know when it's time for the next decision.
Not just for supply chain
The same approach works well beyond manufacturing. The webinar shows how it applies to strategic workforce planning, to bed and nurse capacity in a hospital, and to office space planning in a hybrid world.
Want to see how it works?
Watch the webinar recording and see how you can turn uncertainty into concrete decisions, with clear owners and triggers for when to act.
