A common excuse to avoid long-term planning is the belief that “we cannot predict the future.” This is a frequent quote from business students in management classes. They are playing “gotcha” with the teacher. Often these participants are in a high tech field with rapidly changing technology—for example, computers or networks and related fields. A simple challenge is appropriate to this foot dragging: “Do you really think Bill Gates and Microsoft refuses to plan because they can’t predict the future? My guess is that they design the future.” Asking managers to think long term isn’t the same as asking them to make predictions. What you are being asked to do is to describe where your organization will be at some point in the future. Anyone can do that. With a little thought and imagination any manager can describe some future setting.
In other side, you also have to set your time frames after you set your future setting. This way to keep your business future stays in the track. But, before you go on to set your time frames, in your planning session consider the following questions:
- What is the trend data of the past?
- Where are we now on the cycle of our industry?
- How have the variations of ups and downs changed over the past few years?
- What industry data do we have projecting trends for the future?
- Will looking at a ten-year window give a more complete understanding of future requirements?