Planning for the “next normal” through balance, horizons, and documentation

Michael Yuann • April 27, 2020

Following my first blog article on crisis management during times of uncertainty, I also encourage engaging in longer-term planning. I concluded my previous article stating that although some people are finally settling in to the “new normal,” now is the best time to prepare for the “next normal.” Recent events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic show how despite continued uncertainty, we could be entering the phase of our “next normal” sooner than expected, and for some it is even happening now. In this article, I share my thoughts on how to plan for the “next normal,” and hope it serves you well. As always, I welcome your feedback about your best practices for planning, along with ideas for future article topics centered around Business Operations leadership.

Takeaways:

  • To stay ahead of the curve and maintain sanity during a crisis, ensure resources are allocated and balanced toward long term planning and initiatives 
  • Apply flexible frameworks across different time horizons and scenarios to maintain agility and structure during periods of significant uncertainty
  • Collaboratively document outcomes to achieve clarity and consensus, while providing a convenient and central point of reference


While the COVID-19 pandemic has either disrupted or deeply affected most business operations at a breakneck pace, its impact remains uncertain: both in predicting the waves of residual economic effects resulting from this crisis, and in estimating the overall recovery timeline. Besides swift reaction with a crisis response – such as applying the “communicate, triage, and uplift” framework described in a previous article – top performing organizations are able to rise above a basic survival mentality, and transcend through adopting resilient, sustainable and winning practices. So while operations may have just settled into the “new normal” for many, it is also a critical time to plan ahead and prepare for the “next normal.” To accomplish this, balance resources between immediate crisis operations and longer term planning initiatives, adapt flexible frameworks across different time horizons and scenarios, and collaboratively document and communicate planning outcomes.


PART 1: ALLOCATE AND BALANCE RESOURCES FOR LONG TERM PLANNING

Have you and your organization worked through your post-pandemic, or even your post sheltering-in plans? For many companies, this may seem more familiar: you walked into a leadership meeting in early March to finalize rolling out your 2020 operations plan, only to find the unfolding COVID-19 crisis implied that all your work from the last few months just went out the door. Suddenly, you find yourself in firefighting mode, and during the following weeks, although you may have quenched some critical survival needs, you find yourself gasping for air and wondering how to catch up, let alone getting ahead of the curve. If you identify with this situation, shifting your perspective and mindset -- even by just spending 30 minutes outside your regular work pattern to draft a long-term plan on paper -- will bring some semblance of control that can bring you back on track.


Popular quotes come to mind here, such as Benjamin Franklin’s “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” When the crisis came around, many were kicked into a survival mode that caused long-term planning to disappear. Considering Maslow’s Motivational Theory on the Hierarchy of Needs, survival includes covering basic needs, before high-order needs are addressed. That runs contrarily to Frankl’s Logotherapy and Existential Theory, where the “search for meaning” enables survival in even the most dire circumstances, such as in Nazi concentration camps. I believe these theories can co-exist, and the challenge here is balance.


Given the complexities of this pandemic and everyone’s unique circumstances in facing the crisis, what represents balance for one organization may be completely different than another. It’s important to consider how much resource gets allocated toward day-to-day crisis management, while maintaining longer term planning activities. A potential solution is to appoint a task force or planning group dedicated to preparing for the “next normal,” while allowing existing crisis operations to continue as is. Involving diverse teammates or third parties in this task force may also help bring fresh perspectives and new approaches to tackling your greatest challenges, especially if the existing crisis team is already overwhelmed.


PART 2: ADAPT FLEXIBLE FRAMEWORKS ACROSS DIFFERENT TIME HORIZONS AND SCENARIOS

Once white space has been created for clearer thinking and longer-term strategic planning, adapting flexible frameworks across different dimensions is key to maintaining agility and structure during significant uncertainty. The “fog of war” concept, which I was first exposed to while playing real-time strategy games like Dune II and Warcraft in the early 1990’s, is a military operations concept that serves me extremely well in leading and planning large scale operating initiatives and programs. Just as the military uses “doctrine” and guiding principles to enable quick decision making in the context of war, applying flexible “frameworks” provides guidelines to navigate effectively between planning and execution in the context of business operations.

Time is a fundamental element in planning, so I typically start from this dimension. Depending on the operating scale, different cadences or levels of complexity may apply. A flexible mental model that enables shifting perspectives quickly, from immediate to longer term, without committing too much to a specific frame. The “Current / Future” model is simplest, which can be used to map current operations in the “new normal” against planned operations in the “next normal.” For temporary scenarios, the “Past / Present / Future” model is lightweight and effective for contexts like sales and marketing messaging “pre-shelter-in”, “during shelter-in,” and “post-shelter-in.” I map across broader time horizons for scenarios that include long-term uncertainty:

Immediate | Short-term | Mid-term | Long-term | Outcome

Current | Next 2 weeks | Quarterly | Annually | Next Normal

Since it’s hard to predict when the “next normal” will arrive, we can envision the “fog” as a cone of uncertainty across immediate, short-term, mid-term, and long-term time horizons. Then, by visualizing the outcome or “next normal,” we can flexibly consider aspects across different time scales.


After establishing a frame across time horizons, we can model different scenarios according to probable outcomes. While the simplest method is to just define an expected result, another lightweight approach is to map the worst-case, middle-case, and best-case scenarios, and then calculating weighted averages. Applying prediction curves brings an additional layer of complexity, but is especially important in contexts such as product launches, seasonality, or for the COVID-19 pandemic and predicting the “next normal.” Some common predictions on how the crisis might play out include U V L, and more recently, W shaped curves. Consider that business may spike with an “IV” like curve immediately after shelter-in starts relaxing. This curve is similar to what I have seen with game launches, where there is significant initial demand at launch, followed by a rapid drop, which gradually increases after a steady state such as live game operations take effect. Similarly, there’s been a lot of pent up demand while we’ve been sheltering in, so this model could happen with services such as hairdressers, photographers, and dentists.


Finally, I consider how these stack with a standard framework. For example, organizational frameworks are effective in deploying plans across teams, such as a standard SaaS go-to-market structure including Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success. On my website, I also walk through using the CRISP framework to plan for the "next normal" which applies to Business Operations at technology startups.


PART 3: COLLABORATIVELY DOCUMENT AND COMMUNICATE PLANNING OUTCOMES

As you work through your “next normal” planning, I encourage you to do it collaboratively with documented outcomes, while being mindful of the Agile Manifesto principle of “working software over comprehensive documentation.” Considering that the “new normal” is forcing a lot of work to happen remotely during this pandemic, collaborative documentation improves communication, and not only generates clarity and consensus during the planning process, but also serves as a convenient and central point of reference for those plans. Once you have worked through the plan, make sure you bookmark it, or print and post it at your desk, so that you may regularly refer back to the big picture when shorter-term issues are running hot. It will also serve as a wonderful artifact to reflect upon years from now, when the world has moved on well into our “next normal.”


If you would like to get a PDF, Google Doc, prior examples, or sample outcomes for this planning exercise, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. Please also feel free to comment on this article with your own planning best practices, and I welcome your feedback!


Further reading and useful resources related to this article

  • McKinsey: Getting Ahead of the Next Stage of the Coronavirus Crisis
  • Hyde Park: Startup Resources COVID-19
  • Agile Alliance: The Agile Manifesto


Connect with Michael Yuann: while we are physically distancing, let’s be socially united!



Join our newly forming community centered around Business Operations at bizops.me.



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5 Reasons to Plan For Your Next Vacation During the Great Reopening

By Michael Yuann • June 11, 2020
Write about something you know. If you don’t know much about a specific topic that will interest your readers, invite an expert to write about it.

Communicate, Triage, and Uplift: a 3-part framework for crisis management in times of uncertainty

By Michael Yuann • April 17, 2020
This is my first blog article and is also published here: https://www.yuann.co/posts/communicate-triage-uplift While the COVID-19 pandemic is taking the world by storm, our systems for working and learning have been significantly impacted, and we are seeing a massive spike in media consumption and content creation. More importantly, in confronting the challenges of this pandemic, we are forming a new sense of community. So I write my first blog article wondering about how best to share my thoughts during “these unprecedented times.” I wish to express my genuine desire to help others who are facing unique challenges, in a period of significant change and uncertainty. Since a lot is screaming for our attention these days, I appreciate you for reading this article. I welcome your feedback about your own best practices for crisis management, as well your ideas for future article topics centered around business operations leadership. Takeaways: Communicating with authenticity, speed, and transparency is the foundational core for crisis management. Triage response includes effectively prioritizing and directing available resources by keeping things simple, organized, and accessible. Uplift operational excellence by planning ahead, practicing continuous improvement, and staying positive. As a business operations leader, I regularly handle crisis management in times of uncertainty. Since business operations (BizOps) is responsible for the strategy and analysis around driving revenue, profitability, and growth for companies, it consequently provides key cross-functional leadership in organizations. When complex problems arise without clear ownership, people often first look to BizOps to take the lead on bringing solutions to the table and constructing action plans. The COVID-19 pandemic caught many off guard without warning, sending many businesses into crisis mode. The 3-part framework I use to guide me through crises is “communicate, triage, and uplift,” and I hope it may also serve you well during these uncertain times.‍ PART 1: COMMUNICATE WITH AUTHENTICITY, SPEED, AND TRANSPARENCY‍ When emergencies arise that may eventually evolve into a full-blown crisis, effective communication is critical. In Part 2, I get further into the dynamics of identifying and categorizing crises, but since we are dealing with uncertainty here, I find that communication needs to remain the front and center topic until more information is known. By its nature, some form of communication leads to an urgent situation presenting itself and demands attention. The response significantly determines the outcome of the situation, and as a compassionate leader, I value authenticity, speed, and transparency in my communications, and crises amplify these values. Authentic communication both comes from and engenders trust. That trust leads to successful outcomes by embracing a collaborative, supportive and cooperative approach. When someone triggers an alert to an emergency situation or potential crisis, I start with attentive listening. This serves three purposes: 1) to acknowledge the issue and reinforce open communication, 2) to gather more information to guide the response, and 3) to bring order and calm to the situation. Listening helps me work through the stages of the stress response: an alert or stimulus triggers a surge in adrenaline, which prompts a desire to fight, run, or hide. As these primitive mechanisms kick in, I breathe deeply and focus on the present, buying critical seconds for channelling that energy into calm, clearer thinking. While fear and the stress response are useful survival traits, when combined with uncertainty, it may lead to extremely contagious anxiety. That’s where the other 2 communication values kick in. Anxiety escalates in the absence of information, so it’s better to have an initial response quickly that acknowledges the problem, rather than leaving the other side hanging and ruminating about bad outcomes. For urgent issues, I generally target first response times of 15 minutes for internal communications and 2 hours for external communications, but this greatly varies depending on the business scenario. Transparency efficiently generates alignment, and separating what is known and unknown enables teams to collaboratively identify and fill gaps where needed. Since I learned about transparency’s effectiveness from early work experiences at Google, I try to be as transparent as possible, while including discretion on confidential or sensitive topics. Especially when faced with uncertainty, set proper expectations by not providing false reassurances or fake optimism. It’s ok to say you don’t know about something, or that a problem is new and unfamiliar: then let’s work together to solve it! ‍PART 2: TRIAGE BY PRIORITIZING AND DIRECTING AVAILABLE RESOURCES WHILE KEEPING THINGS SIMPLE, ORGANIZED AND ACCESSIBLE.‍ In college, I did EMT training where we covered the basics of triage and disaster management. Personal health and safety come first! You can’t help others if you don’t make sure you yourself are healthy and safe. Likewise, when encountering business operation emergencies, use situational awareness to determine if employee health or workplace safety are affected, and act accordingly. The next part is systematically identifying all the issues and tagging each with a priority. In medical triage, each case is worked systematically by tagging survivors with “I” (immediate=RED), “D” (delayed=YELLOW), “M” (minor=GREEN), and “DEAD” (BLACK). Similarly, with business triage, I visualize an organizational framework to ensure I’ve covered each functional group, or if we’re a room, I go from inside out in a counter-clockwise circle. Each issue gets tagged with a priority level P0-P3, where P0 is “immediate, all hands on deck” and P3 is “minor, handle when availability arises.” I treat issues that fall completely outside of our control or don’t require action as part of the “dead” category. After forming a map and assessment of the critical issues, the next step becomes documenting a plan that organizes resources. I try to keep things as simple as possible, using collaborative, accessible systems that folks are familiar with or easy to learn, such Google Sheets. Since BizOps serves as a cross-functional hub, I jump to the lowest common denominator, as not everyone on the team is familiar with, or has access to more sophisticated incident response systems like JIRA. Keeping things simple also enables the team to stay focused and agile, while facing problems that may involve significant complexity. From here, we run through the list of issues sorted by priority, where the team naturally organizes around responsibilities and assigns action items. We then form new Slack channels around specific issues requiring real-time communication, and identify future check-in points around other issues. Then off we go, set the plan in action! ‍PART 3: UPLIFT OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE BY PLANNING AHEAD, PRACTICING CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT, AND STAYING POSITIVE. ‍Now that the initial crisis response meeting has adjourned, and everyone is heading back to their desks to set the plan in motion, it’s time to take a deep breath and a break, right? Resoundingly, the answer is YES! Although instinctually, I may want to roll up my sleeves and start tackling the top issues, this is a critical period to shift gears and create whitespace for deeper thinking around longer-term planning. What new issues might arise that the team hasn’t considered yet, and how and when will I address them? Who are the appropriate stakeholders to invite to our post-crisis retrospective meeting, where we review our crisis response and identify additional opportunities for improvement? What gaps are being exposed during this incident or event that will allow us to tighten operations in the future? Finally, what if this becomes a deep and prolonged crisis, with lingering questions and uncertainties? How will I balance immediate firefighting with longer term needs, such as developing new fire suppression techniques, and planning for what happens in later phases of the crisis? Thinking through these questions -- even if it suspends action on immediate plans -- provides additional clarity and relief to confidently navigate the crisis. As a parting thought, my heart goes out there to everyone adversely affected by COVID-19, whether it is businesses facing financial turmoil, or individuals who are now facing unemployment or underemployment. Stay positive by recognizing that resilience through tragic events can lead to improvement opportunities with lasting impact. The Black Death caused incredible societal transformations that rebalanced long-standing economic inequalities, and led into the Renaissance era. Some of today’s great technology companies used the 2008 recession to lock in business fundamentals and step ahead of the pack. My own personal experiences with unexpected unemployment enabled me to reconnect with my purpose and strive toward new heights. I am hopeful about the lasting positive impact COVID-19 will have in the areas I am most passionate about, including the future of work and learning. Although some folks are just starting to adjust to the “new normal,” it is challenging to predict how long the current pandemic will last or its residual effects. There’s no better time than now to start preparing for our “next normal,” and the opportunities and challenges that will come with it!‍ FURTHER READING AND USEFUL RESOURCES RELATED TO THIS ARTICLE‍ Harvard Business Review - Coronavirus ebook Atlassian - Incident Response Playbook Ready.gov - Business Continuity Planning Connect with Michael Yuann: while we are physically distancing, let’s be socially united! I'd be glad to share some of my crisis management experiences directly.  Join our newly forming community centered around Business Operations at bizops.me.