How To Plan For Exponential Success

Importance of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is an organization’s process for defining long-term direction. This process also includes making decisions on allocating resources to pursue this direction. Many organizations struggle with the development, deployment, or maintenance of strategic plans, which can happen for a variety of reasons.

One way to improve your chances of success when creating and implementing a strategic plan is to begin the process with an exponential mindset.

Incremental Strategic Plans

The more traditional incremental strategic plans allow for small improvements at a steady rate. There is a set schedule and clear timeline for when changes should occur. On the other hand, leaders with an exponential mindset seek changes that have a major impact on the organization. Like a kaizen event, exponential strategic plans require a new approach to problems and aim to produce rapid, profound improvements.

While incremental strategic plans may produce improvements of 10%, exponential plans can lead to returns of 10x. This comes with a caveat, however. Exponential plans are more creative and allow for such dynamic change because there is not necessarily a clear, straight line from point A to point B. One of the trickiest parts of developing and implementing an exponential strategic plan is accepting the uncertainty that comes along with it.

Another challenge with exponential plans is that the results may not be seen right away or on a linear schedule, as they would with an incremental plan. Most of the progress occurs at the end of the process, and is not evenly distributed throughout the early and middle stages. If you can get past this, the rewards can be worthwhile. Having an exponential mindset can open up opportunities for innovation and transformational change.

For more information on strategic plans and how Juran can help you leverage them to improve your quality and productivity, please get in touch with the team.