What is Scenario Planning in Projectal?

Scenario planning lets you explore and develop strategies for managing all the possible situations that your company may face. It helps you create strategic plans for your company as it navigates the uncertainty of future events. 

Scenario planning should manage both the positive and negative business scenarios. Once a plan has been selected as the best course of action, then following this selected plan can allow a company to focus on the positive and reduce the impact of the negative.

Scenario planning often needs to be private and confidential since plans can lead to sensitive company decisions for moving forward.  Senior management typically perform these "what-if' scenario planning steps and these plans will not be visible to all company staff.

Scenario planning is used for making small day-to-day decisions through to making major corporate decisions:

• Within projects, when changes occur or problems arise.
• Within departments and locations, when team size changes or costs change.
• At the company board level when external or internal events are affecting the company's health.
  

Example: Your company has the opportunity to win a major new client with a potentially lucrative project.  You need to develop various scenario plans to understand if your current team has the skills and capacity to complete the project, and how many new staff (either full time or freelancers) you need to hire before committing to the client.

Example: A existing client has requested changes to a project that your company is currently completing for them. You need to understand the impact of these changes.  You may need to consider several scenarios to determine the adjusted costs, schedule and team allocation.

Example: Your industry sector has had a major downturn due to external events.  You need to consider cutting costs to ensure the company's survival.  Developing various scenarios and choosing the most appropriate path forward is the best course of action for senior management.  

Example: Your company is conducting its annual performance reviews whereby some staff salaries may be increased.  You need to do this work in private and you need to see the effects of any salary increases on the overall company budget, specific project budgets and department budgets.

Example: Your company has entered into merger and acquistion (M&A) discussions with another company.  You need to develop various scenario plans in private to understand what is the best outcome for the company post merger for its existing offices, staff and shareholders.