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Strategic Planning for Innovators

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targeted customer base. The exercise creates an understanding of com￾petitors’ strategies and also reveals vulnerabilities in the current strategic

position.

By putting strategic assumptions up for critical examination, the senior

management team stays conscious of the very thinking that guides their

company’s destiny. This exercise prevents taking assumptions for granted,

and encourages willingness to explore new assumptions.

Besides strategic assumptions, other measures of changes in thinking

would be noticing latent needs, distinguishing new core competencies,

revealing previously unrecognized customer segments, noticing emergent

industry trends, or developing new product and service ideas.

Dance with what you get

The fi nal difference between strategic planning and strategic innova￾tion is how the agreed-upon-plan gets implemented in the marketplace.

This point in the process reveals stark differences between replicators and

trendsetters.

Replicator strategists try to determine the exact objectives, to spell out

the plan that has the strongest chance of accomplishing those objectives,

and then to allocate the required resources. These planners most often

adopt a “get it right the fi rst time” approach to introducing product and

service innovations.

Unfortunately, the strategies developed in the isolated tranquility of a

management retreat don’t always track with the quirky and unpredictable

reactions of customers. Unanticipated changes derail even the most care￾fully considered strategic moves. Sooner rather than later, the plan on paper

must be adjusted, calling increasingly upon the leader’s creative instincts to

navigate in an uncertain world.

Strategic innovation is based on understanding that innovation is not a

zero defect process. Organizations must prepare for repeated course cor￾rection in response to customer feedback. Strategic innovation is part care￾ful planning, and part trial and error until you hit upon what works. The

fi rst part of planning aims to discover a defi nite direction to move in to

Invent Business Opportunities No One Else Can Imagine

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serve the marketplace. The second part is learning to “dance” with chang￾ing conditions.

“Dancing” is the experimentation that transpires when hypothetical

strategic plans interact with the dynamic marketplace. The steps to the

dance are simple. Strut forward into the marketplace by placing your inno￾vation prototype within reach of potential users in early fi eld tests. Step

back and observe customer reactions, inquire after feedback, and dig for

every possible insight. Scan the business environment for any ripple effects

your innovation exerted in the marketplace. Swing out one more time using

what you have now learned, to deliver a refi ned value offering. Keep swing￾ing in and out until you get it right.

Notice the make-it-up-as-you-go tempo. Strategic innovation is messy.

More time is spent in making mistakes and learning from them, than in

trying to produce perfect plans. The resulting plan is not an ironclad irre￾versible set of moves but rather a commitment to a strategic direction.

Repeated course correction is the modus operandi. The introduction of

each prototype or product version stimulates customer feedback, which in

turn ushers in a whole new set of questions, dilemmas, and choices. The

trendsetter’s job is to dance with them.

Sequence your thinking

One of the greatest challenges to successful innovation is the ability

of a team of planners to orchestrate their thinking in a sequence that pro￾duces maximum results. Unfortunately, most strategic processes aren’t ana￾lyzed in terms of their “thinking requirements” so innovation bogs down

and people become frustrated.

Innovation suffers when planning groups fall into three classic pat￾terns. Some groups may become so enthralled with generating ideas, and

underplay the need to rigorously gather facts about the marketplace, and

end up with half-baked ideas. Other planning teams become overly ana￾lytic and always crave additional information before they can reach a deci￾sion, often missing the window of opportunity. The third common failure

is when strategists judge ideas prematurely, so there’s insuffi cient time for

incubating enough new ideas.