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 in the Flex Diamond model
• Why it is revolutionary
• How it works

Key planning drivers make up the basic elements of the Flex Diamond model:

1. The plan's starting point, represented at the bottom of the model
2. The goal and point of arrival, represented at the top, and defined uniquely by the model
3. Timelines and milestones, represented on the y-axis
4. Major decision points, found at the mid-point of the diamond
5. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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:

• Analyzing external business environment forces
• Determining product life cycles.

All Flex Diamond models work in this manner. The organization:

1. Defines a starting point, a time span, and a goal; and sets boundaries within which it will operate, represented by the diamond's sides.
2. Explores options and opportunities that may help it to meet its goals, during the first part of the plan period.
3. 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.
4. 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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