User:SunTzuGuy/Draft Articles/Prometheus Process

Summary

The Prometheus Process is a Strategic Planning methodology that is used by organizations and businesses to create and achieve goals. Its essence is simple: think strategically, focus sharply, and move quickly. It is based on systematic analysis, parallel change principles, and engagement of the entire workforce to achieve strategic targets. The Prometheus Process was developed in the military and has since been used successfully in the business world.

The Prometheus Process was also used in the White House to develop programs to improve American economic competitiveness. It was used to propel the Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College to become a model for professional military education around the world. Other users include: the City of Garland, Texas; Bank of America, Fannie Mae, and Ritz Carlton.

The Bama Companies used the process to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 2004.

The process was named after Prometheus who, in Greek Mythology, was a Titan, and one of two brothers assigned the responsibility of putting life on earth - Epimetheus, whose name means “hindsight”, and Prometheus (wiki) (Ancient Greek: Προμηθεύς), who name means "forethought." Epimetheus went first and populated the earth with all the animals. Then it fell to Prometheus to create man.

Prometheus saw that his brother had given the animals powerful survival tools: claws; speed; height; weight, and other physical attributes. He asked himself, “What is left for mankind?” Prometheus realized that man could prevail against stronger, faster adversaries only if he could out-think them; thus his first gift to mankind was forethought, the capacity to think ahead. Later, he stole fire from the very throne of Zeus and gave it to man. With forethought and fire, man could overcome every obstacle – and he alone of the inhabitants of the earth had the power to create the future.

History

Prometheus as a Strategic Planning process had its genesis in the United States Air Force. During the planning for the first Gulf War, called Desert Storm, Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., commander of U.S. forces in the region, asked planners to create a strategy to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

At that time, then Colonel John A. Warden III was working in the Pentagon in charge of a planning group called Checkmate. Colonel Warden and his group used a process that he had developed to create the plans, which became the framework for the Air Campaign in Desert Storm.

The process emphasized treating the problem as a Systems issue. By using the Five Rings concepts and Effects Based Planning, the Checkmate team created the groundwork for the successful air campaign, which led to the victorious outcome of Desert Storm. Subsequently, Colonel Warden left the Air Force and refined his strategic planning system into what is now known as the Prometheus Process.

The Prometheus Framework

Prometheus consists of four Imperatives:

I.	Design the Future

II. Target for Success

III. Campaign to Win

IV. Finish with Finesse

Within each of the Imperatives are a series of steps designed to generate the overall objectives of each of these Imperatives. In the first Imperative, Design the Future, the organization decides where they want to be at a certain point in time.

The steps in Design the Future are:
 * Scoping the Environment (for trends and disruptors)
 * Describing the Future Picture (with 12 Key Descriptors)
 * Creating Guiding Precepts (values)
 * Creating Strategic Measures (to track overall progress)

In the second Prometheus Imperative, Target for Success, the organization decides where to apply their resources in order to achieve their strategic objectives.

This is done by:
 * Identifying the internal and external Systems in which the organization exists, and determining how those systems must change to achieve their strategy.
 * Identifying key leverage points, or Centers of Gravity and determining the changes needed in those Centers of Gravity.

The third Imperative is called Campaign to Win. The steps in this phase are:
 * Operate in Parallel (acting against many Centers of Gravity at the same time)
 * Organize to Win (change your organization as needed to execute your strategy)
 * Orchestrate resources (carefully plan your implementation process)

The last of the Prometheus Imperatives is entitled Finish with Finesse. The steps in this imperative are:
 * Define Exit Points (creating criteria that will let you know when it is time to change a strategic approach, or to move, on having finished successfully)
 * Build a Termination Plan (ending a strategy successfully)
 * Reconstitution (recreating your new Future Picture after the completion of your present strategy)

Prometheus Concepts

Prior to the development of a Prometheus Grand strategy, the company engages in intensive Environmental scanning to determine the various dynamics that may have an impact on the organization now, and in the future. As in Porter 5 forces analysis, PEST analysis, and Freeman’s Stakeholder Concepts, a careful analysis of macro-environmental factors is undertaken. This analysis enables planners to have a solid overview of the various factors that must be taken into consideration in the planning process.

Prometheus appropriates the concept of Grand Strategy as the ultimate expression of an organization’s overall strategic direction and endpoint. Strategists must consider carefully their allocation of economic resources, their strategic thrusts (theaters) and their moral resources, or values, as expressed through the Prometheus concept of Prime Directives. All of these dynamics, and more, are captured as part of the first Prometheus Imperative, Design the Future.

As in Strategy maps, organizations using the Prometheus Process derive a macro view of their “worlds” to describe their strategy development process and its outcomes. Prometheus asks organizations to explain in great detail their external environments (markets, competitors, customers, regulatory agencies, etc.), as well as their internal environment (the various aspects of their own organizations).

Through the use of terms such as a Future Picture, Fractal Analysis, Master Effects Plans, and Centers of Gravity, the Prometheus organization gains a common vocabulary, which serves to unite the organization around their overall strategic plan.

The Prometheus Process, much like the Balanced Scorecard, emphasizes the critical importance of measures. The underlying principle in both systems is that you cannot track and manage what you cannot measure.

Business strategy, as with Military Strategy, deals with the planning and conduct of Campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces (resources in an organization), and the deception of the ‘enemy’ (competition). Absent measures, it would be very difficult to chart the progress of your campaigns, utilization of resources, or effect on your competition.

In Applied Strategic Planning, Goodstein, Nolan, and Pfeiffer present a nine step planning model. Concurrent with their nine steps are two continuous phases that they call Environmental Monitoring, and Application Considerations. The authors postulate that strategic planning is a dynamic process, and therefore constant attention must be paid to forces, both internal and external, that may affect the construction and execution of organizational strategies.

In the Prometheus Process, in addition to constant environmental scanning, organizations learn to appreciate the difference between strategy and tactics. By comprehending the essential difference between the two, planners and organization members can react quickly to changing situations, while at the same time keeping the overall strategic direction in mind.

Additionally, through use of robust measurement processes, pre-defined Exit Points, and constant monitoring of Desired Effects – both at the system and key leverage point, or Center of Gravity levels – the organization ensures that it is working towards achievement of the overall strategic goals.

Prometheus utilizes Systems Thinking throughout the process. Systems are defined as having two essential characteristics. First, the whole accomplishes something that none of the parts alone can do. Second, the performance of the whole and that of the parts are interdependent.

The Prometheus Process recognizes these dynamics as a critical part of the overall planning process. When creating a Prometheus Grand Strategy, an organization is required to look at two systems, the environment outside of their organization, and their organization itself. By analyzing and understanding these two systems, planners may define an overall end state; or Desired Effect for the systems and their key component parts, and thereby create a strategy and tactics which can overcome a systems natural resistance to change.

Systems exhibit what has been called the Hysteresis Effect, that is to say, they will deform when pressure is applied and spring back to their original shape when the pressure is relaxed. In the Prometheus Process, the Hysteresis Effect is overcome by the application of what is called a Parallel Attack.

In this scenario, multiple Centers of Gravity are brought under change pressure at the same time, which has the effect of changing the system(s) in the desired strategic direction. Continual pressure is applied against the system(s) as part of a coordinated Master Effects Plan, in which Centers of Gravity are changed over a fixed time frame, which equals the strategic horizon envisioned in the organization’s Grand Strategy.

The final Imperative in the Prometheus Process – Finish with Finesse – deals with the successful ending of one strategy and the movement into a new strategy. In this Imperative, planners agree, as part of the active planning process, to establish a series of Strategic Exit Points, which are data points that describe a situation where an exit of some kind is indicated.

Exit Points can be established for any positive or negative circumstance that occurs during strategy execution.

A partial list of Exit Points:

Positive Negative
 * When the Future Picture is realized well in advance of the Future Picture strategic horizon
 * When rewards do not justify risks, or Opportunity costs are high
 * When Discounted Future Value – Time Value of Money) is unattractive
 * Where an organization would not get in if they were not already in
 * When mandatory schedules are missed
 * No profits (especially in disruptive endeavor)
 * When badly lagging the industry
 * When a key customer(s) declines
 * When Cycles – List of Cycles) are in decline
 * When a strategic mistake is clear

This may be the point where the overall Grand Strategy has been achieved, or where a situation has developed that requires the organization to shift direction in reaction to events.

The essential difference between Prometheus and other strategic planning methods is that Exit Planning is done as part of the overall planning process. It is somewhat analogous to Scenario planning in that planners envision situations that may occur and set on place options to deal with them, when or if they arise. Once exit points are developed, they become part of the overall Termination Plan, which is a way of ensuring that a strategy ends in a manner chosen by the organization, and with as much success as possible.

The Promethic Laws

These are the laws of human action--the relationship between actions and the future; the environment in which actions take place; the nature of environments; the prerequisites for successful environmental change, and the relationship between actions and termination. They provide the theoretical base for the Prometheus Process:


 * Every action affects the future - Every action has consequences, and those consequences include an inexorable influence on tomorrow. Organizations cannot act and think nothing will happen because of their actions.
 * Specific actions create a specific future - If an organization wants to define and create a desirable future, they must craft actions to bring it to reality.
 * Every thing and every action happens in a system – The human body is a system, as are families, companies, markets, and countries. Everything that is done takes place in the context of one or more systems, and everything done affects these systems in some way.
 * All systems have inertia and resist change - Sir Isaac Newton long ago described the Law of Inertia for physical objects. As he said, a body in motion tends to remain in motion, and a body at rest tends to remain at rest.  Inertia is the “force” which resists changing the motion state of an object.  Systems comprised of animate and inanimate entities follow these same rules--they resist change.
 * All systems have Centers of Gravity - No matter how complex or how simple, every system has at least one element whose alteration has a greater impact on the whole system than do many or most of the rest of the elements in the system. These “leverage points” are called Centers of Gravity in the Prometheus Process.
 * Systems change when their Centers of Gravity change - Systems may also change if enough elements change that are not Centers of Gravity.
 * The extent and probability of system change is proportional to the number of Centers of Gravity affected and the speed at which they are affected - Systems have inertia and resist change. Affecting Centers of Gravity creates more system change than affecting elements that are not Centers of Gravity.  If an organization tries to affect Centers of Gravity slowly, the system quickly “learns” how to resist and to repair itself, whereas rapid parallel (simultaneous), impact on Centers of Gravity significantly reduces the system’s ability to learn or to react.
 * All known systems and things have a beginning and an end- Everything around an organization functions in a cycle of some kind with a beginning and an end. In other words, whatever an organization’s business is, or their approach to that business (strategy) is, it will have an end.
 * Specific actions produce specific ends.

Prometheus Cardinal Rules

Cardinal Rules are strategy rules of thumb, which have widespread applicability across different organizations:


 * Think Like An Architect
 * Focus on the Future
 * Plan And Operate In The Open, and Use A Red Team
 * Execute Good Enough Plans
 * Go To Rome!
 * Concentrate For Strategic Success
 * Stay Out of The Balkans!
 * Maximize Friends, Minimize Enemies
 * Don’t Underestimate What It Takes To Win
 * Don’t Deceive Yourself
 * Maintain Momentum—By-Pass Barriers
 * Maintain And Use Reserves
 * Be Offensive!
 * Impose Your Plan!
 * Make Time Your Servant