One last concept that we would like to share with you before we get stuck into PLOT is the use of Storytelling in innovation.
As we all know stories all begin with “One upon a time” and finish with “and they all lived happily ever after”.
Well, the same applies when we are using the PLOT canvas. Using PLOT to develop a strategy and roadmap involves telling a story that starts with the Problem statement and the background to defining the strategy, through to the actual Strategy itself and how, what and why you took decisions that led to the development of the roadmap.
PLOT has a 9-step Strategic Planning methodology that is shown as chevrons at the top of each page. These Steps tell the stepwise story from the current situation to the roadmap of projects that will transition you to the desired destination.
Let me give you an outline of each step.
Here we name our canvas, choose the canvas type that corresponds to the use case, select the users in our company who we want to have access to collaborate in developing the canvas.
Here we start to tell the story, “Once upon a time there was a company offering …..”. We describe the context for the Strategy as to what has triggered this work.
Whilst we have the background and context for the canvas we need to summarise and synthesise the Strategic Drivers - think of threats and opportunities we need to consider.
The initial statement of our strategy are the classis Mission and Vision statements.
We need to identify 4-6 Strategic Goals that encompass the achievement of the Vision and for each Goal we need to unpack them in terms of Levers in the Business and Capabilities we need to have in order to impact the levers. Business Capabilities are the building blocks in designing a business. The Capability being defined as the “mashup” of the three elements - People, Process and Technology. We need to identify what Capabilities are needed and how they impact the Goals.