scenario-planning

# Scenario planning Forecasting produces one number and false confidence. Scenario planning produces a plan that survives being wrong, which is the realistic goal. ## Separate what you know from what you are assuming List the plan's assumptions explicitly, then sort them: - **Predetermined** — things that will happen regardless. Demographics, contracted commitments, technology already deployed. Plan around them; do not spend analysis on them. - **Genuinely uncertain and load-bearing** — the plan changes materially depending on how they resolve. Almost every plan has **two or three** load-bearing uncertainties. Finding them is most of the value, and the exercise usually surfaces one nobody had articulated. ## Build scenarios from the uncertainties, not from moods The common failure is three scenarios named optimistic, base, and pessimistic — which is one scenario with the numbers scaled, and it teaches nothing. Take the two most consequential uncertainties and build the quadrants. Each scenario should be internally coherent: if demand is high *and* supply is constrained, what else follows — pricing, competitor behavior, regulatory attention? Give each a name that captures its logic. Names make scenarios usable in conversation, which is where they earn their keep. Three or four scenarios. More cannot be held in mind; two collapses into best and worst. ## Stress-test the plan against each For every scenario: does the plan still work, what breaks first, and what w...