that the plan-ahead team consider every possible horizons across which business leaders should scenario. It should ideally have red teams and blue be planning. teams to make sure there are no biases in how it assesses the scenarios. Optimism bias can be a big Shubham Singhal: Thank you, Sean. Businesses problem in this situation. are obviously experiencing a significant shock, so leaders need to think through the stages this crisis, At the end of this process, the organization needs and by extension their companies, will go through. to settle on a planning scenario that includes a There are five stages we see, and whether you are set of simple assumptions that delivery teams can a public-, social-, or private-sector institution, you take as their go-to assumptions. For example, the need to be thinking about all five horizons, because scenario may take the view that Region A will be they blend into each other. And they can move up and running by a given time. The delivery team very fast. does not get to question that assumption; the scenario-planning and the strategic-actions team, The first stage is Resolve. This is where we find together with the decision-making team, define it. ourselves now—all the choices around public-health However, the truth-discovery team needs to make measures and the expansion of the healthcare sure that the strategic-actions team has the benefit system and testing capacity by a factor of four of all the different scenarios they have come up or five in a few weeks. If you are a private-sector with. Confining the portfolio of strategic actions institution, you face decisions about business to only one possible scenario creates too narrow continuity. What are the critical functions that a planning effort. You need a series of possible must continue? What could close? The second futures as inputs into strategic actions, which then state is the Resilience category. That involves get translated into triggers for each of those actions. significant planning around liquidity, solvency, and economic sustainability. One last point: operational-risk teams usually become very tactical very quickly, for the simple Next comes planning for the Return. Vaccines reason that we do not regularly update goals for and other treatments are fairly far away, and just operational teams. A critical part of a crisis nerve gaining control of rising infections and treating center’s role is making sure the scenario-planning critical cases does not mean the virus won’t resurge. team, together with the strategic-actions team, So how do you think about returning to normal feeds into the operational-risk team on a weekly business? How do you get employees back? What basis, so you can update goals, start new teams distancing measures do you keep in place? Which when needed, and reallocate resources as required. geographies and parts of the economy can return to business? For a lot of businesses that shut down, Sean Brown: Thanks very much, Mihir. Shubham, it is not that easy to open again. You may have lost now I turn it over to you to discuss the various the workforce along the way, need to bring on new “We are in a wartime period, if you will, questioning how information is being used, what opens when, who gets what money. What part of that will sustain into peacetime?” –Shubham Singhal 130 What now? Ten actions to emerge stronger in the next normal September 2020