“Scenario planning” has become boardroom shorthand for preparation to deal with the unknowable. It’s a practice that is never more vital than in wartime, when a sea mine, cyberattack, or sanction can reroute supply chains overnight and send energy prices soaring.
Instead of betting on one forecast about how events will unfold, the most resilient CEOs are now rehearsing several plausible futures at once and deciding—before the missiles start dropping, the virus becomes a pandemic, or the markets seize up—what they will do in each.
