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The
Flex Diamond™
Strategic Planning Model
The Flex Diamond strategic planning model is an important part of
the Marriott Consulting Results Planning™ process. It
shows you graphically how well your organization is meeting the needs
and demands of all
your stakeholders, not just one or two groups. It is also easy
to comprehend and act upon.
On This Page:
Key
Elements
Key planning drivers make up the basic elements of the Flex Diamond model:
- The plan's starting point, represented at the bottom of
the model
- The goal and point of arrival, represented at the top,
and defined uniquely by the model
- Timelines and milestones, represented on the y-axis
- Major decision points, found at the mid-point of the diamond
- Alternative paths and growth options that must be managed
to arrive at your strategic goal, represented by the curved paths
from bottom to top.
A new way of defining strategic goals: The goal of most strategic
plans is often defined quite narrowly - in terms of financial gain,
market share, or industry leadership, for example.
The Flex Diamond model uses a more inclusive concept to better represent
conflicting priorities and constantly-changing landscapes. It is
based on the economic principle of "efficient transactions," which
is reached when there is no other combination of factors that will
make all parties in the transaction at least as well off.
Similarly, the Flex Diamond model defines a strategic goal as being:
that combination of core competencies, talents, and resources
that make all the stakeholders in
an organization best off.
It is important to consider all stakeholders in setting a strategic
goal. There is no lasting advantage in a product company gaining
market share if it can't make money - nor any point in returning
extra value to investors at the expense of employees who wind up
leaving.
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Why the Flex Diamond
model is revolutionary
 In
addition to its new, inclusive definition of strategic goals, the
Flex Diamond model revolutionizes the way you plan and implement
your organization's strategy in four other ways:
- Recognition of change: it recognizes today's business
reality that conditions and opportunities change rapidly, leading
to high levels of planning uncertainty. It assumes that in your
world, uncertainty and change will be constant decision-making
companions.
- Management of change: it provides the ideal tool for managing
the changes you deal with every day, by allowing your team to view
and analyze the potential impact of any change on all stakeholders,
and to optimize decisions and actions to achieve essential balance.
- Simplicity and scalability: it is both easy to use and
powerful on every level, leading to unparalleled adaptability for
your team. Both current conditions and future actions are easy
to visualize, understand, discuss, and act upon, so your organization
can use the strategic plan as a daily tool, not an annual exercise.
- Improved goal definitions: it keeps your organization's
goal definitions pure, while mapping the changing landscape and
your potential paths through it.
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How the Flex Diamond
model works
Because
the Flex Diamond model is built on a foundation of basic decision-making
activities, it can be adapted to a wide variety of business planning
and decision-making situations, on both strategic and tactical levels.
For example:
All Flex Diamond models work in this manner. The organization:
- Defines a starting point, a time span, and a goal; and
sets boundaries within which it will operate, represented by the
diamond's sides.
- Explores options and opportunities that may help it to
meet its goals, during the first part of the plan period.
- Continually monitors changes in the business environment:
the general economy, moves by customers, vendors, and competitors,
and other factors that affect what can be done to meet the strategic
goal.
- Makes decisions about which alternatives it will follow,
and then uses those alternatives to focus in on the final goal.
Decision points are represented by the horizontal axis of the diamond.
Other Flex Diamond model elements are these:
- Everything inside the diamond represents core competencies, capacities,
and opportunities.
- Outside the diamond are weaknesses, business environments, competition,
and other outside influences.
- All growth paths are the combinations of competencies, markets,
opportunities, resources, and capacities that can move the organization
towards its strategic goal.
- The business plan growth path is the path that appears to be
most direct at the beginning of the plan, and is the one that is
publicized to the world.
- The alternate paths are ones the organization may take due to
changes in opportunities, competition, business environment, etc.
- Decision points come when the organization has explored all the
alternatives and begins to focus on what will get it to its strategic
goal the quickest.
- As the organization focuses and nears its goal, externals can
have less effect due to its momentum; hence the tapered shape of
the top half of the diamond.
For additional information, contact Marriott
Consulting today.
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