By Karen Lundquist, Association Manager, Impact AMC
Have you ever read an article that said “the pace of change is slowing?”
I didn’t think so.
Limitations are constantly being challenged while new opportunities appear. The world demands that we adapt and we have learned to anticipate the unexpected.
As an Association Management Company, our team here at Impact AMC works hard to assess how advances present risks and opportunities for our clients, scanning for what is next on the horizon.
What is an Annual Horizon Scan?
One of the associations we partner with conducts an Annual Horizon Scan as part of its multi-year planning process. This group uses a three-stage process:
Cast a broad net by requesting input from membership and partners. In addition to an emailed survey, the committee catalyzes by personally talking to strategic partners, former members, and colleagues. It also has a list of resources that are regularly searched and intentionally roam beyond industry standards.
Review and recommend the topics that fit the organization’s strategic framework. A robust committee conversation, followed by applying a rubric to prioritize the topics, results in a vetted list of relevant issues.
Strategic refinement happens at the annual meeting. The incoming president shares the issues list, adding context and detail where needed. This second assessment adds recommended action for each issue, ensuring that the efforts added to the organization’s project list are actionable.
This process can be adapted to complement natural cycles like strategic planning, your annual meeting, a board retreat, or the budget cycle. It provides a method for keeping your organization relevant and your actions meaningful, as well as a powerful way to engage your membership in your planning.
Why conduct a horizon scan?
If your industry has rapidly evolving technology, changing standards, or your members are experiencing other kinds of shifts, a horizon scan helps align your plan with today’s environment. It can also:
Find out what’s on your members’ minds
Assess changes that may impact your organization and members
Formalize keeping your strategic plan relevant without having to recreate it.
How do you conduct a horizon scan?
As you consider whether your organization would benefit from checking trends, here are four hallmarks of an effective horizon scan.
Maintain your strategic boundaries.
Your strategic plan is a critical foundation for focusing your team on what you want to do and what to avoid. Keep those boundaries in place as you determine what new factors will impact your organization. A well-crafted plan will have the flexibility to adapt to new data without expanding to the point of distortion. Your boundaries keep you in the lane while allowing you to refine your trajectory.
The horizon scan is defined and disciplined.
Thorough research that taps into membership insights is an ideal start. From there, having a repeatable process with a clear timeframe that prioritizes the importance and urgency of your findings will help you transition your work from information into insight you can act upon.
Additional activities require additional resources.
Once you have set aside time for your horizon scan, make sure you consider the human and financial resources you need to move forward. Building consensus about a new initiative includes defining what it will take to fully realize your work. With many organizations depending on volunteers, making commitment feasible is especially important.
Measure twice, cut once.
Carpenters know that taking time to plan is key to success. But don’t forget to take action! When you are measuring your outcomes, build in questions about whether to stop, increase, or change your efforts.
Where can you start?
When there are world changes, we all feel the shift. Taking a moment to thoughtfully explore that change and its implications empowers your organization. You feel prepared, not off balance. That exploration offers time to reframe your view and look for opportunity as well as potential crises. Best of all, anticipation prepares you for the possibilities.
As a boutique AMC, Impact keeps our fingers on the pulse of change, looking for best practices and unique opportunities. Impact AMC offers customized strategic planning services, which means you choose the steps that best complement your association’s process.