7 Steps to Your Recovery Roadmap
The COVID-19 crisis is like surviving an airplane collision. The debris is still floating in the air while we are trying to rebuild the airplane in mid-air. Leaders have had to keep a constant focus on urgent matters so had little time to lift their heads and consider the future they want for their organisation.
There is tendency during times of crisis for managers to withdraw and wait for things to return to the way things used to be. Now is not the time for that since we will never return to a previous normal. The Recovery Roadmap prepares for the immediate and future economic and social ups and downs. A roadmap can be completed for the entire organisation or for a section.
The Recovery Roadmap is an immediate response to things happening on the ground and is adjusted every few weeks. It is a warp speed mini-strategic planning process with clear goals, times and actions with quick decisions and rapid adjustments.
7 Steps to Your Recovery Roadmap
Step 1: Clarify the external and internal factors that will impact your organisation - The first step is to examine the external and internal factors that will affect the organisation.
Step 2: Define your goals for 6 months, 18 months and 3 years – the second step defines your destination and goals over immediate, short- and long-term horizons. This can include key targets and outcomes such as revenue/sales. costs, and funding projections, marketing initiatives, environmental factors, staffing, structure and operations, products and services.
Step 3: Build Possible Scenarios – Determine the possible future scenarios that can occur, and which are the most probable,
Step 4: Act quickly: Set high priority short term actions for the next 6 months - Create a 6-month action plan quickly. Determine your short-term imperatives, the high priority things your organisation must do to survive, succeed, and grow.
Step 5: Review, Reinvent or Abandon Your Current Strategic plan - Next reconsider your existing strategic plan—every aspect of it, from minor to major things that need to change. Important questions to consider are: Do we keep or reinvent our purpose, vision and values?: What services, products and activities should we stop or continue doing?
Step 6: Align the organisation structure, systems, and procedures - Once your recovery roadmap is developed, step back and evaluate whether you have the right structure, systems and procedures to achieve short- and longer-term goals.
Step 7: Regular, rigorous review and revision - Conduct regular and rigorous reviews of the actions, progress and goals every few weeks.
The L Factor: 5 C’s of Leadership - A successful implementation of the Recovery Roadmap only occurs with effective leadership which includes: Cohesion, Competence, Criteria, Communication, and Culture.