What is Scenario Planning?

How will climate change, e-commerce growth, federal and local policy, or food safety protocols impact your business or the world your business exists in? Are you at a pivotal point in deciding if you should manufacture in-house or search for a co-packer? Scenario Planning helps your business plan for multiple possible futures and identify what it will take to be successful in each of them.

What You Get

This fast-paced, immersion training takes entrepreneurs and their teams out of their day-to-day context and gives them the clarity and focus to navigate changes in markets, operations, and finance. The training includes: tools, resources, coaching/ supported strategy development, business presentations, and networking.

Attendance for each training is limited to eight businesses. Two people from each business are encouraged to attend. Come out with greater resilience in times with high levels of uncertainty.

Included in your training:

• 4 days of content delivery and work time,
• 2 hours of one-on-one coaching,
• scenario building template,
• 3-4 scenario narratives with supporting strategies,
• scenario feedback from coaches and remarkable people (a.k.a. industry experts).

Over the course of 4 Sessions, you will:

• Frame your stories for your future by:
  • Identifying a powerful question about the future of your business
  • Scanning the future for key trends, what’s clean, and what’s uncertain
• Create and present your potential futures by outlining, crafting, & presenting different, possible futures
• Develop robust strategies & strategic foresight by:
  • Identifying & future-testing strategies
  • Exploring strategic implications from your presentation & vet potential strategies

Who Should Take This Course

Food, beverage, and value-added farm businesses that are…

• pivoting to address new or altered markets,
• considering a significant transition,
• confronting operational decisions that require investment, or
• need to address current or potential supply chain disruptions.

After taking this training you will:

• Understand the foundation of your businesses presentation
• Have a deeper understanding of the assumptions behind your business model and markets
• Understand common language for your leadership team to make sense of the unfolding future
• Have a shortlist of robust strategies to help navigate uncertainty today and moving forward
• Have exposure to the mindset of strategic foresight

Schedule: September 19th – 29th

• Content Delivery Sessions:
  • September 19th – noon to 4pm Central
  • September 22nd, 27th, & 29th – 9am to 1pm Central
• Coaching Days:
  • September 20th or 21st & September 26th – to be scheduled after registration

Scholarship Opportunities are available, learn more here. 

About the Facilitators

Eric DeLuca is the founder of Leverage Point Consulting and the main instructor for these workshops. DeLuca has engaged in over $7.2 million in funding decisions benefiting working lands enterprises since 2010. He also serves on the national Food Systems Finance Advisory Council of the Council of Development Finance Agencies. He is an expert on food systems finance as well as scenario planning. Listen to the Edible Alpha® Podcast episode with Eric diving deeper into Scenario Planning here!

Brad Rostowfske works with food and beverage businesses to help them scale and align their limited resources to profitably. He has expertise in business innovation, new product development, marketing and engineering, with demonstrated accomplishments working with a variety of consumer products brands. This unique skill set positions him to be an excellent business coach for our Accelerator Program and Scenario Planning training.