"When you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." - from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

Once again, its that time of year when organizations begin to take stock of where they have been the past year and start looking forward in an attempt to predict the future that awaits them in the new year.  Executive retreats are held.  Special strategy-focused Board of Director meetings are conducted.  If you are really efficient, goals and objectives are cascaded down through the ranks.

So how do you envision the future?  Where do you start?  Do you conduct "Voice of the Customer" sessions?  Do you task your marketing area to conduct some customer ethnography where you watch how your customers (and your competitors customers) use and "misuse" products?  Do you watch larger societal trends in purchasing, saving and investing?  Do you trend watch at a more micro-level where your product line works and plays?  Are there industry or other professional conferences that you and your team can learn about new areas of research and exploration?  If you are a smart leader who considers future growth as the only long-term survival mechanism, you'll invest in all of the above.

So what do you do with all of that future-focused information?  Do you increase funding in process improvement to ensure your day-to-day operations are lean and mean?  Do you focus on extending some product lines to squeeze some more profit from them?  Do you place a few big bets on that new product platform you discovered after watching customers struggle with a particular task that your organization is uniquely qualified to deliver?  Do you add some bonus incentives and other resources to the bleeding edge research your R&D area has been begging for all year?  If you are a believer in the "Balanced Innovation Portfolio" you are going to say yes to all three.

But lets drill down even further.  Down to the operational processes that move ideas and other new areas of thinking into reality.  How do you establish a working system for innovation...or an innovation management system?  How about a roadmap?  The strategic tool that visually depicts each stepping-stone of gradual change from one state of business reality to another.  Here is an example of a roadmap that builds, step-by-step, an Innovation Management Program:



You can also have a roadmap of projects...a roadmap of product development...a roadmap of product lifecycle...a roadmap of continuous improvement...a roadmap of technology upgrades/releases...a roadmap of strategic research...

During my recent visit to 3M to learn more about their approach and dedication to innovation, noted Corporate Scientist Andrew Ouderkirk walked through 3M's "Forward Mapping" concept where product scientists envision all possible future uses of a technology platform.  This exercise helps the leadership keep one eye on the future, while keeping the other eye on maximizing current profit on the product/technology platform.  Jeffrey Phillips, via his Innovate On Purpose Blog, covered this topic well, so please click HERE to learn more.

Find a way this year to incorporate some of the future-focused exercises mentioned here into your overall strategy planning.  Plan for the future.  Make a well-rounded bet.  By that I mean some safe bets on things you already excel at, some medium risk bets on things you are confident will succeed and some high-risk bets on breakthroughs that may or may not pan out.

Remember, you cannot predict the future, but you can make some very educated guesses.  It is not a "dart board" exercise.  It is a deliberate exploration of what is likely to come based on trends.  Remember the Think For A Change motto:  "Imagine the Future...Make it Happen"