JUNE 2024HR TECH OUTLOOK9· Location: Which markets are likely to grow, remain core, or might decline? Where does work need to be performed "in the country" and co-located versus where can it be truly virtual or global? · Skills: How will skills need to evolve based on business models and technological change? Where are the biggest deltas, where are there potential skill adjacencies, and how best to close any gaps? · Build, borrow, buy, or bot: Who performs the work - what can be built in-house (or recruited on the market), borrowed (via contingent workers, alliances), bought (via M&A), or automated? · Value and optimisation: How can you drive efficiency in the underlying organisation whilst growing the top line? What is the expected return on investment?'. Moving from Strategy to Operation Operational planning adds the next level of quantitative detail and precision to the strategic plan but on a much shorter, typically one-year, horizon. It translates strategy into an action plan, setting budgets, FTE targets, and aids talent acquisition. It is important to avoid line-by-line or bottom-up approaches and focus target setting at the level that drives behaviour and influences business outcomes. Start with your existing organisation and focus efforts on identifying efficiency or growth initiatives. Experience shows line by line approaches give a false sense of discipline and quickly diverge from reality. Execution and Continuous Planning The value of any plan lies not in the thinking, but in the execution. Transparently tracking real-time delivery (via an analytics visualisation tool) helps drive discipline and accountability. It also helps to provide indicators on when to pivot. No plan survives the first action with the enemy. In a fast-paced world adopting a continuous planning mindset allows you to revisit and adjust plans mid-cycle, making decisions informed by both data and the risk and opportunity analysis from your SWP is the key to success. Some Parting Advice: Since I started with a quote from Tetlock and Gardner, I will close with one which gives some practical advice for your journey: "Focus on questions where your hard work is likely to pay off. Don't waste time either on easy `clocklike' questions (where simple rules of thumb can get you close to the right answer) or on impenetrable `cloud-like' questions (where even fancy statistical models can't beat the dart-throwing chimp). Concentrate on questions in the Goldilocks zone of difficulty, where effort pays off the most." In a fast-paced world adopting a continuous planning mindset allows you to revisit and adjust plans mid-cycle, making decisions informed by both data and the risk and opportunity analysis from your SWP is the key to success
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