What does the future organisation need to look like?

This is where the big ideas need to happen! What does the technology landscape look like in that future? Given that you know what your target market is going to be, how are you going to reach them? What resources – both people and systems – are you going to need to do that?

The fun really starts when you start looking at the rest of the organisation. In 3-5 years time, there could well be serious changes in working practices, who you are recruiting, technology and systems etc etc.

The key thing is to describe how the organisation will work, the volumes it will need to deal with and the types of systems it will be using. This will then allow you to understand what the organisation needs to look like in terms of delivery. Then the management layers can be added over that.

Too often, people start at the top and work down – which means they can be caught out by serious changes in technology etc as the world advances.

The next stage in the process is defining what the highway looks like.