Envision Success

How Visualization Inside: 5 Proven &

Powerful Methods

Builds Better Strategic Plans for Strategic

Planning
How Strategic Planning Drives Success
You’ve probably heard the old proverb that failing to plan is
planning to fail, but consider this: according to statistics, a
whopping 70 percent of all projects come in late and over
budget, or are scrapped before completion. In fact, project
failure is virtually expected in a number of industries today.
Some 75 percent of IT executives, for example, believe
their projects will fail before they even start.

At the same time, companies and organizations that find better

ways to plan and manage projects are highly rewarded for it.
High-performing companies and organizations successfully
complete nearly nine out of ten of their planned projects,
while low performers complete less than four.

Lack of strategic planning leaves the

Sinclair 5 all washed up

> The project — In 1985, the Sinclair C5 was set

to revolutionize the way people commute. The
three-wheeled vehicle would use far less gas than
conventional cars, be more affordable to buy, and make
urban traffic congestion in the UK a thing of the past.

But as the Sinclair C5 began rolling off the production

lines, there was a bit of a problem. Part of the cost-
and gas-saving design was that the vehicles were
built without a roof. And it rains in the UK. A lot.
To top it off, the C5 had no reverse.

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> The result — Sales were abysmal. The Sinclair C5 lost
$12 million and declared bankruptcy in less than a year.
> How good strategic planning could have made
a difference — The Sinclair C5 project could have
had a sunnier outcome if the characteristics of the UK
market and the needs of its consumers had been more
thoroughly explored. Strategic planning tools such
as SWOT or a PEST analysis would have captured the
threats to the C5’s success as the strategic planning
stage, and enabled the team to see that the
project was doomed from the start.
The key to success for these high-performers is not simply
planning, but planning strategically.
As a process, strategic planning looks beyond the parameters
of the project itself to consider:
• how the project aligns with and supports the company’s
vision and mission;
• the current and future opportunities and risks within the
company’s industry; and
• opportunities and risks within the broader society, such
as differences in local and international markets, the
project’s impact on the environment, the health of
the world economy, and more.
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How Visualization Strengthens
Your Strategic Plan
Henry Mintzberg, an esteemed Canadian expert on business
and management, as well as the Cleghorn Professor of
Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management
of McGill University, has pointed out that an inherent weakness
of traditional strategic planning is that it can’t mirror strategic
thinking. Planning tends to be linear, while creative activities or
“connecting the dots” (as Mintzberg calls it) are not.

You can understand this concept by looking at the simplest of

project management tools, a to-do list of tasks. Even if the list
captures all required activities, it’s static; it doesn’t allow you
to visualize how various tasks will be completed in tandem or
consecutively; their interdependencies; or how efficiencies
could be built into the process.

5 ways a strategic plan helps your

project succeed

1. Buy-on: A strategic plan enables you to show how

your project supports the company vision and objectives,
making it easier to get buy-on at the executive level and
collaboration from other teams.

2. Agility: A strategic plan identifies internal and external

threats and opportunities upfront, so you can make more
proactive decisions to help to keep your project on time
and on budget.

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3. Innovation: With smarter decision-making, a
project founded on a strategic plan is more likely to be
innovative, get to market faster, and enjoy higher sales
and profitability.
4. Motivation: A strategic plan is a rallying force that
lets everyone see the big picture, leading to increased
employee engagement.
5. Resiliency: Strategic planning puts your company in
a forward-looking position, making your project and
your organization more resilient to downturns in the
economy and your industry, as well as better prepared
to pursue opportunities.
Better by design
As such, strategic planning templates such as project
mapping have evolved beyond linear lines of thinking to
capture the multi-dimensional complexity and innovative
potential of projects. Interestingly, this is due as much to
human biology and evolution as it to the template design.
Recent research has shown the human brain is hardwired to
plan, learn and create through visualization. When you can
visualize different aspects of a project, different parts of your
brain are stimulated – meaning you not only see the project
more clearly, you can actually think better.
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You Can Start to Build a Strategic Plan
with Visualization–Right Now
There are a number of powerful and proven Mapping and
Visualization tools that can help you build your strategic plan.
These tools not only help you to organize and track ideas,
resources, next steps, budgets and timelines, but also enable
you to see and address potential problems and opportunities,
come up with new ideas, and guide your thinking.
In the following pages of this eBook, you’ll find five tools you’ll
want to incorporate into your strategic planning. Plus, a pre-
prepared template for each tool so that you can start right away.
5 Visualization Models for
Strategic Planning
1. SWOT: Helps identify internal strengths and
weaknesses of an organization, as well external
opportunities and risks.
2. PEST: Looks at big-picture factors influencing strategic
planning; often used with SWOT to enhance and expand
insight.
3. DESTEP: Examines big-picture factors beyond a
company’s control and helps determine ways to adapt.
4. Porter’s Five Forces: Helps to delve into five external
forces that could impact a company’s or a project’s
profitability.
5. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Helps weigh the benefits
against the costs of a project or a business decision, to
help determine whether a company should proceed or
consider alternative options.
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SWOT
The acronym SWOT helps you strategize four things about your
company or product: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and
Threats. The beauty of SWOT is that it helps you examine your
strengths and weaknesses in relation to your competition, so you can
determine your key selling features. Once you have this insight, it also
becomes easier to figure out markets or opportunities where you have
a competitive edge, or how your business might be threatened by
competitors or marketplace events.
In its traditional form, a SWOT analysis template is simply a square
box divided into four sections, with each space used to write down
thoughts and ideas for each component.
With Mapping/Visualization, a SWOT template becomes much more
sophisticated – you can literally think outside the traditional SWOT
box, building and expanding ideas and their inter-relationships, and
identifying different options.

window
The SWOT template is
available for you to
download here.

download
To secure your own free trial
version of MindManager
software, click here.

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PEST
Another acronym, PEST analyzes political, economic, social and Like SWOT, a traditional PEST template is divided into sections of lists,
technological factors to help guide your strategic planning and which can soon be crowded and make it hard to see the forest for
decision-making. For example, how will a change in government policy the trees. With Mapping/Visualization tools, these ideas can be easily
or free trade agreement affect your competitiveness? Will it create moved around and managed, enabling team members to put the
new opportunities or open markets for your company? PEST is highly information into usable context.
valuable when used in conjunction with tools that analyze threats and
opportunities, such as SWOT, as it helps you think of external factors
you may not otherwise think of.
 

window
The PEST template is
available for you to
download here.

download
To secure your own free trial
version of MindManager
software, click here.

8
DESTEP
DESTEP (demographic, economic, social, technological, ecological and
political) is founded on the premise that a company must contend with
factors it can’t change, and instead must adjust their strategic planning
to succeed. For example, DESTEP can help a company to compare
various locations to build a new store. Is there a skilled local workforce
(demographic)? Can the local economy support adequate sales? Are
there ecological regulations that would be challenging?
Again, a traditional DESTEP template is quite simple to create (often six
boxes arranged in a circle with space to write lists of ideas) but lacks
the ability to help team members see the factors in context or how they
fit together within a strategic plan. Mapping/Visualization DESTEP tools
allow team members to see the big picture at a glance: items can be
can be organized in a more intuitive fashion, ideas can be expanded
on, and tasks and other considerations captured

window
The DESTEP template is
available for you to
download here.

download
To secure your own free trial
version of MindManager
software, click here.

9
PORTER’S FIVE FORCES
Porter’s Five Forces was developed by Harvard Business School Similar to the traditional DESTEP template, a Five Forces tool can
professor Michael Porter as a way to help organizations to be aware quickly become a field of seemingly disjointed lists. With Mapping/
of five forces in the competitive environment that could threaten their Visualization tools, each section becomes interactive, with the ability
bottom line. These include competitive rivalry (how many competitors to sort and categorize insight and information so that it is better
you have); supplier power (the number of potential suppliers, which understood and acted upon.
will affect prices); buyer power (the influence your buyers have on
your pricing); threat of substitution (the ability of customers to find an
alternative product or solution); and threat of new entry (the ease with
which a start-up can enter your industry.

window
The Porter’s Five Forces
template is available for
you to download here.

download
To secure your own free trial
version of MindManager
software, click here.

10
COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
As its name implies, a cost-benefit analysis weighs the benefits against
the costs of a project or a business decision, to help determine whether
a company should proceed or consider alternative options. It’s essential
for figuring out budgets, required resources, and timelines in strategic
planning, and helps provide objectives and metrics to determine success.
The three main steps in a cost-benefit analysis include identifying costs;
identifying benefits; and comparing costs and benefits. That sounds
simple, until you consider how many costs and benefits can be involved
in even a smaller project. Traditional templates can fail to capture
important values that either can’t be quantified or are hard to forecast,
such as increased customer loyalty. Mapping/Visualization tools can help
ensure all variables are captured and considered during the analysis,
including more subjective values.

window
The Cost-Benefit Analysis
template is available for
you to download here.

download
To secure your own free trial
version of MindManager
software, click here.

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