III . Simulations and scenario-planning

·       How can we have foreseen risks and challenges of our change and innovation processes?

·       Do you want to discover how to prepare for VUCA times?

·       My fundraising campaign is not going according to our initial plan. What are our options?

Scenario planning is making assumptions on what the future is going to be and how your business environment will change overtime considering that future. More precisely, Scenario planning is identifying a specific set of uncertainties, different “realities” of what might happen in the future of your business. It sounds simple, and possibly not worth the trouble or specific effort, however, building this set of assumptions is probably the best thing you can ever do to help guide your organization in the long term.

Scenario planning might not have such dire consequences in your organization, but if not done, you risk opening the door to increased costs, increased risks, and missed opportunities. Scenario plans, ultimately, tell a story with many possible endings

Decision making should be based more on data and analysis than intuition and gut feelings. However, as leader of youth NGO you might encounter two major difficulties while running fundraising campaigns or projects: First, data may be difficult to gather. Second, data tells you about the past but gives you absolutely no indication about the future. Therefore, the capability to run scenarios is a key decision-making tool.

The main reason why projects and campaigns fail is because too many people are reluctant to speak up about their reservations during the all-important planning phase. By making it safe for dissenters who are knowledgeable about the undertaking and worried about its weaknesses to speak up, you can improve a project’s chances of success.

One of the greatest tools you can use to run efficient simulations in a controlled environment with your team is the pre-mortem analysis.  A premortem is a project management strategy that will help you prepare for every twist and turn. Think about what could happen in a project – good or bad – and plan before it starts. Doing a Pre-Mortem is a process in which your team imagines that their project or campaign has failed before it starts. The team then brainstorms all the possible potential reasons that the project could fail and assigns a probability to each potential reason. For the highly likely reasons of potential failure the team can develop countermeasures to protect the project or the campaign.

Bellow you can find the main phases to facilitate a pre-mortem analysis.

Step 1: Preparation (5 min)

Start by creating a collaboration document or bring a flipchart paper, sticky notes, markers and gather your team in a meeting room.

On the digital document, paper, or whiteboard, add columns with the following headers:

·       What could cause us to miss our deadline?

·       What will keep our project on time?

·       What does this project need that we don’t have?

·       What do we already have that this project needs?

·       What lessons have you learned from past projects?

·       What are you worried about?

·       What are you excited about?

Step 2: Set the stage (5 min)

Start the meeting by asking the team to consider the following: 

·       What could go wrong with this project/campaign?

·       What could go right with this project/campaign?

·       The goal of the meeting is to focus only on this project/campaign.

Step 3: Brainstorm (15-20 min)

Give the team ten minutes to silently write their answers on the collaboration document or on sticky notes placed under each question.

Step 4: Group similar ideas (5-10 min)

Work together as a team to merge similar ideas into lists.

Step 5: Identify threats (5 min)

Next, ask your team members and volunteers to vote on the cards or sticky notes across the board that pose the biggest threat to the project/campaign.

Give each team member three votes. Let them know they can choose to use all three votes on one card, two votes on one card and one vote on another, or one vote on three different cards.

Step 6: Identify the successes (5 min)

Next, ask your colleagues to vote on the cards or sticky notes across the board that are going well for the project, and that represent keys to the project’s success.

Give each team member three votes. Let them know they can choose to use all three votes on one card, two votes on one card and one vote on another, or one vote on three different cards.

Step 7: Discuss (25-30 min)

Move the three topics with the most votes into the “to discuss” column.  Starting at the top, set a timer for ten minutes. In these ten minutes, you’ll discuss the risk and come up with at least one action item to mitigate the risk. Move on to the next card and repeat until you’ve discussed all three cards.

Step 8: Into action (10 min)

Recap the action items your team is committing to. Ensure each action has an owner and a deadline.