How a planning engagement runs
Six stages. Stage three sets the ceiling and stage five is the difficult one. Neither can be skipped without producing a plan that will not be executed.
Framing
What decision the plan has to support and who has to make it. A plan written for a board is not the same document as one written for an executive team, and establishing that first prevents an expensive redraft.
Evidence gathering
Interviews across the organization, financial and operational data, and conversations with people well below the leadership team, who usually have the clearest account of what is already consuming capacity.
Capacity assessment
How many management hours genuinely exist for change work, after current commitments are counted. This number sets the ceiling on how many initiatives the plan may contain, and it is almost always lower than the leadership team expects.
Options and sequencing
Candidate initiatives assessed against that ceiling and sequenced across the planning period, with what will not happen in year one named explicitly rather than left ambiguous.
The stop list session
Facilitated with the leadership team, identifying specific activities that will end, with dates and owners, agreed by the people whose work is on the list. The plan is not issued without it.
Plan and handover
The written plan, the capacity model and the interview framework transfer to you, so your team or another firm can revise the work without starting again.
What this approach costs us
We lose engagements at the stop list. Some leadership teams will not do it, and where a client refuses we do not issue the plan. That has ended relationships and it is not negotiable.
Our plans contain fewer initiatives. A competing proposal producing fourteen looks more ambitious than one producing five, and boards do compare on that.
We do not bid for the implementation. The delivery work arising from a strategy is usually worth more than the strategy itself, and we exclude ourselves from it.
We tell clients they do not need a plan. Some organizations have a perfectly good strategy and a capacity problem, and saying so ends the conversation before an engagement starts.
Frequently asked
What is actually on a stop list?
Specific named activities, programmes, meetings, reports or commitments that will end, each with a date and an owner. Not a general commitment to prioritise, which is what usually gets offered instead.
What if we refuse to produce one?
We do not issue the plan. It has happened, and where a client will not name anything to stop we would rather return the fee than deliver a document that cannot be executed.
How do you measure capacity?
By mapping the management hours that genuinely exist for change work once current operational commitments, governance obligations and known projects are counted. It is an estimate and it is considerably better than the assumption of unlimited capacity.
Will you help us implement?
We will not tender for delivery of work we recommended. We will advise on sequencing and review progress, and many clients implement perfectly well themselves once the sequence is clear.
How are fees structured?
Fixed against scope, agreed in advance. Never contingent on projected benefits, which would give us an interest in the forecast rather than in its accuracy.
Who receives the findings?
The full board. Where the board and executive hold different assumptions, both positions appear in the document rather than being reconciled privately beforehand.
Do you work in Spanish?
Yes, throughout. Planning sessions across the Valley routinely run in both languages and our documents are produced in both where a client needs it.
How long does an engagement take?
Typically ten to sixteen weeks depending on organization size and how many people need to be interviewed. Rushing the evidence stage is the most common way these engagements fail.