Playbook
Running Annual Planning
Annual planning as a chain of decisions instead of a writing exercise: surface the assumptions, make the real choices including what to stop, draw the logic on one page, then commit to numbers that report back every quarter.
For years my firm's annual plan was a document we wrote in November and rediscovered, with mild embarrassment, the following October. I suspect I am in good company. Effort was never the problem; we worked hard on those plans. What we got wrong was treating planning as a writing exercise, when it is really a chain of decisions, and each link in the chain needs a different tool. SWOT starts the chain by getting everyone's unstated assumptions onto one page where they can be argued over. Playing to Win then forces the actual choices: where we will play, how we will win and, most usefully, what we will stop doing. A Strategy Map turns those choices into a causal picture simple enough to survive being explained in a corridor. OKRs finish the job by converting it all into a few measurable commitments per quarter, so the plan meets reality every ninety days instead of once a year. Each framework hands its output to the next; skip the sequence and you get four handsome artefacts and no change. My test for a planning cycle is whether the people in it can state the choices from memory, without reaching for the document.
Strategy & competition
SWOT Analysis
For getting a team's view of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats onto one page, with evidence, before deciding anything. Leave it alone when you need decisions; it organises evidence and contains no way to choose. Instead TOWS, which turns the four lists into choices; SWOT only organises the evidence.
Open with SWOT precisely because it is quick and everyone knows it. The value at this stage is getting the team's conflicting, unstated assumptions onto a single page before the real decisions start. Keep each quadrant short and evidenced, and pay attention to the pairings: strengths against opportunities show where to attack, weaknesses against threats show where you are genuinely exposed. Treat anything unevidenced as a hypothesis. A strengths list that filled up easily usually means the bar was set at 'things we do'.
Watch forSWOT is the warm-up act, and the trap is mistaking it for the strategy; a full grid is a shared picture, nothing more.
Strategy & competition
Playing to Win (Strategy Choice Cascade)
For making a strategy an integrated set of choices: what winning means, where to play, how to win, and what capabilities and systems you need. Leave it alone when the market is too new or turbulent to choose honestly; experiment first. Instead Build-Measure-Learn; in a market too new to choose honestly, run cheap experiments before the cascade.
This is where planning becomes choosing. Five linked questions: winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, what capabilities, what management systems. The middle pair does the heavy lifting, and the two must be decided together, since a where without a how is a wish. Look hard for the words 'we will not'. In my experience an annual plan without a stop-doing list is a to-do list wearing a suit, and the calendar will treat it accordingly.
Watch forWatch for an aspiration everyone applauds sitting on capabilities nobody has funded; that is a poster, and posters do not compete.
Strategy & competition
Strategy Maps
For drawing a strategy on one page as cause and effect, from the people and processes up to the customer and the financial results. Leave it alone when the choices have not been made; a map without them is a wish list with arrows. Instead Playing to Win, to make the choices; a map drawn before them is a wish list with arrows.
The choices now need to travel. A strategy map puts the whole logic on one page: the capabilities you will build, the processes they enable, the customer outcomes those deliver, and the financial results that follow, with the cause-and-effect arrows drawn in where they can be challenged. Drawing the arrows is the point. An objective with no arrow leaving it is a hobby, and it is far cheaper to discover that in the planning room than in next year's accounts.
Watch forThe top band is an effect; if your plan's first move is 'grow revenue', the map is upside down.
Org, people & execution
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
For setting a few ambitious objectives a quarter, each with measurable results, published so everyone can see them and scored honestly at the end. Leave it alone when you cannot yet measure what matters; fix measurement first or the results are theatre. Instead Fix the measurement first; key results on numbers nobody trusts are theatre, however well the objectives read.
Finish by converting the choices into quarterly commitments: a handful of objectives, three to five measurable key results each, published where every team can see them. Publication is half the mechanism, because cross-team collisions surface in week two instead of at the deadline. Score honestly at the end of each cycle and read the misses for information. A perfect scorecard is a warning that the targets were set too low, which was Grove's view and is also mine.
Watch forResist giving every team OKRs for everything they do; business-as-usual does not need a stretch goal, and drowning the breakthrough work in routine metrics is how focus dies.
In the end
Done properly, you end the cycle with a shared appraisal, a set of explicit choices including what you will stop, a one-page causal picture anyone can explain, and quarterly commitments that report back every ninety days. The caveat: this takes more arguing than the binder method, and the arguing is the value. If planning season ends without one genuinely uncomfortable decision, you have produced a description of the status quo with next year's date on it.