Environmental Scan

The purpose of the Environmental Scan is to identify the major trends in the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, and Competitive environments that will effect your future success. Meeting Facilitators International believes that the difference between a useful environmental scan, and one that is completed then forgotten depends on three things.

1. How carefully have the trends been identified?
2. Have you taken the time to "connect the dots" between the trend and your organization?
3. Have you ranked the trends in terms of importance?

A general unranked list of forty trends like "China" and "the aging of the baby boom" is worthless. We believe that a strong facilitator can help you prepare a better Environmental Scan.

Identifying the Trends

This step in the process can be completed as a brainstorming step at a planning retreat, however we find it more effective to collect the trends in advance of the retreat in a series of one-on-one telephone interviews. The reason is that this allows the facilitator to ensure that the trends are documented consistently, with the same amount of detail, and the same level of "granularity". At the same time the facilitator can make sure that all of the important details are included as part of the trend. For example, China is a concern to many organizations these days. For one recent client the key trends were; "Loss of US customers as many of our largest accounts move production to China", and "Increasing competition in China as other competitors set up shop there." Typically working with a senior management team we will identify forty to fifty trends. We ask people for trends in the political (incuding national, international, state, municipal, and regulatory), economic, social, technological and competitive arenas.

Connecting the Dots

During the retreat one of the first things we will do is to review and clarify the list of trends collected during the pre-session interviews. At this time we also make sure to "connect the dots". What we mean by this is that for every trend on the list it should be obvious how that trend will effect the organization going forward. The point of an Environmental Scan is not to predict whether interest rates, or the dollar, will go up or down or stay the same, unless that change can be linked to future success of the organization. (e.g. for a US based manufacturer -- The increasing strength of the Euro is making European products less competitive in the United States, while making US manufactured products more attractive in Europe.)

Priority Ranking the List

Finally a facilitator can help make an Environmental Scan more effective by facilitating a priority ranking exercise. Forty trends is overwhelming. A clear consensus on the top ten trends is something that the team can pay attention to and can plan accordingly as the session proceeds. A straight forward ranking technique like a multivote will allow the group to quickly see what the majority are calling the top trends.

For more details on this and our entire approach to strategic planning why not contact us?