How Scenario Planning Influences Strategic Decisions

A recent study sheds light on how the use of scenario planning affects executives’ strategic choices.

Shardul Phadnis, Chris Caplice, and Yossi Sheffi

Summer 2016

The use of scenario planning once saved a credit union that had had Enron Corp. as its sole corporate sponsor. In their 2009 MIT Sloan Management Review article, “How to Make Sense of Weak Signals,” Paul J.H. Schoemaker and George S. Day described how, after Enron’s sudden collapse into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and scandal in 2001, the credit union survived, rather unexpectedly, because its management had taken previous actions to reduce its dependence on Enron. Management took these actions after considering scenarios in which the ...