It’s the start of a new academic year, and I’ve been thinking a lot about volatility and uncertainty. Developing strategy in an uncertain context is the challenge underlying my current research on games and scenario planning. But even without that focus, just looking at the world around me this summer brought the subject home. Many of my clients experienced disruption to supply chains and operations during the Covid-19 pandemic; most are now contending with serious inflationary impacts. My current projects involve business partners on five continents, and talking to them, some level of political instability is a consistent theme. Even going on a family holiday, our first time out of the UK in two and a half years, raised uncomfortable questions about the state of world and sustainability, as we travelled against the backdrop of heatwaves and wildfires at home and devastating floods overseas.

This piece was commissioned by James McConnachie and first published in the Autumn 2021 issue of The Author, the journal of the Society of Authors. It is reprinted with their permission.

I started a new project this week, doing a piece of business modelling for a client considering a new venture. As a result it was quite a different week to normal: very few Zooms or calls, and several days of intensely focused time researching and sorting the data I could find on the subject and building the first version of the model in Excel. Then testing the logic with a known set of data, before building a set of possible scenarios (base case, downside, upside) and running the model past a couple of senior stakeholders at the client for some useful feedback. Next week I’ll be working on improvements to the basic model.

Running a business has its ups and downs. The successes are heightened because they are your own, but the corollary is that the low points feel particularly personal. This week I had disappointing news on two projects within about half an hour of each other—a blow even if I concluded after some reflection that I wouldn’t have done anything differently on either.

This week was largely spent designing a strategy workshop for an ongoing client. The latter would have been much more straightforward if it were being delivered in person: as it is, I’ve been having to think how to adjust the format for online delivery. Part of that is designing the workshop around short, focused sessions with ample screen breaks. I’m also allowing for regular check-ins with the audience. In person, it’s generally possible to have a sense of the level of interest and focus in the room through watching body language and reactions, but that’s much harder on Zoom. So I’m building in prompts to explicitly ask participants if they’re happy with the material before proceeding, more so than I might if I could gauge a positive mood in the room.