With the COVID19 crisis, hardly anyone is in the bottom corner of the map shown in (Figure 4), because the challenge is so pandemic. Some jobs will be a necessity for sustainability (for example: essential shared services, such as consumer telephone and retail electricity), as their return to normal will be accompanied by different recovery speeds. Others primarily to restructure with a shallow demand environment (eg airlines and cruise ships) must restructure themselves. Other companies have less demand shock but will face different customer behavior. They need to change their business models. However, other companies and industries find themselves in a completely different area on both axes shown in (Table 4) and they have to form completely new businesses.

One of the remarkable features of the COVID19 crisis is the fundamental change in the distance between business models. Within a few days, people have achieved widespread use of technologies that enable remote learning, work, service and consumption. Will this adaptability stop after the crisis or will we go to a new situation? As a result, should you accelerate your investments in a digital business model now? Should we scale back our investment plans to increase our physical footprint in favor of secure bandwidth to host our virtual businesses? Due to the level of uncertainty, you cannot put all your eggs in one basket or bet. An important result of this frame is to create a belief in future issues before defining any initiative.

4- Determine the strategic actions and movements that are constant in all scenarios.

In a world of extreme uncertainty, a strict and definite plan is not correct for a long time. On the other hand, flexibility against everything can be an expensive road to nowhere. Instead, you should think about creating a portfolio of strategic moves that will perform reasonably well in all possible scenarios, even if not every move is a winner by itself.

A tried and tested method is to make the optimal set of moves by implementing a scenario that you know can be eliminated. Start with your existing list of initiatives—the ones that were on file with the organization before the crisis—then look for broad opportunities and threats against that list. Then explore the commonalities and major differences between scenario-specific strategies and initiatives.

Some initiatives will make sense in all scenarios. These are moves you won’t regret and you can move forward with confidence. Others pay a lot in some scenarios but may hurt in others. These are big bets, and the key here is to gather as much information as possible before making a decision. If possible, you should try to divide them into smaller parts, invest in different phases of the field to reduce the risk of a large, one-sided investment under high uncertainty.

Other moves are about taking action on preferred options. When volatility is high, options with higher in-the-money values are more valuable, so now is a good time to option these options. For example, oil and gas exploration companies and film studios do this as part of everyday business, when you are looking for such options, they can be everywhere in your work. Finally, there are moves you can consider that will further protect you from the downside. You can’t avoid risk, but these safety nets can help you take less risk and make the downside less steep.

The result of this framework should be a portfolio containing several strategic moves (typically 12 strategies), ranging from no-regret moves to no-return moves that can irreversibly change the future of a company. give Ensure that movements related to each issue are fully synchronized with key decision makers and stakeholders, both inside and outside the organization. Ideally, you should do this through workshop exercises that force decision makers to consider the likelihood of the actual outcome of actions in moves that may seem unlikely at the moment.

5- Set the heel (critical) points of the path that will lead your organization to work at the right time.

In an environment as uncertain as the environment of the COVID19 crisis, the passage of time makes a rigid plan obsolete. The world is evolving rapidly. You still don’t know which scenario we are approaching. But you should try to be the best learner (be the first to know where the world is going) and the best adapter (the one who makes the best decisions and iterates the program). Achieving such conditions does not depend on starting with a complete plan: Accessing these conditions is about being on the fastest track to progress. In such a fast-paced world, even a great program will become obsolete.

As discussed, most of the moves we describe are reasonable only under certain conditions. However, many companies facing disruption only act when conditions are clearly deteriorating. These conditions are accompanied by emotional and potentially consensus-based decisions, delays or non-implementation that occur in many management teams.

To avoid such an issue, it is very important to ensure that each move is well articulated with a set of specific points for action at the appropriate time so that the organization can begin planning and executing the move in detail. Those decision points for taking action are when the probability of that necessary move increases and it is reasonable to invest in a team to ensure that the organization can act quickly in these circumstances. Deciding when the milestones are reached – and when detailed planning and execution should begin – is the CEO’s primary role in relation to the program development team.

Master it in a race against time

In times like these, being on the fastest track is more important than having a great app because apps become outdated quickly. Staying in the race against time means doing the following moves:

Turn your actions and portfolio of moves into a practical crisis strategic plan, and turn them into options on your table, “early decision making.”

Bring all the initiatives in this plan closer to your short-term goals and decision points. This gives you visibility and allows you to direct action at the right time.

Create a set of indicators that are gathered in a control unit to act as an early warning system so that the desired signal can be seen. Your job is not to recognize unfamiliar situations, but you should be the first one to understand the situation and take the fastest action. This requires a supervisor who can see the signals first, along with a plan that is flexible and ready to act at the desired points.

In addition, the reality of many companies we talk to is that their current budgets are in disrepair and they have no reliable way to determine new budgets. This team formation gives an agile and lean approach to the organization so that resources are allocated at the right time. The budget will be implemented and released step by step. And it forces you to quickly close the long-standing gap between strategy and financial performance.

You will feel such decisions many times in such situations, and you most likely do not have the time and ability to manage them alone. For this reason, even when your crisis team is busy keeping existing businesses in your organization, you need to have your modular and scalable planning team by your side to support your iterative planning cycle during the crisis. – And this is done regardless of the complexity of the problem.