# Build three-year strategic scenarios with signposts and no-regret moves

Builds three distinct three-year scenarios from your biggest uncertainties, with what must be true for each, early signposts, and moves that work in any case.

- Topic: Business Strategy & Startups
- Framework: Chain-of-Thought
- Level: Advanced
- Tags: Strategy, Fill-in Template, Step-by-step
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/build-three-year-strategic-scenarios-with-signposts-and-no-regret

## Prompt

```text
Help me think through how our situation could evolve over the next three years.

**Our business or team:** [WHAT WE DO, for whom, current position]
**The strategic question:** [e.g. "Should we invest in entering the mid-market?"]
**Trends and forces we see:** [MARKET, TECHNOLOGY, REGULATION, CUSTOMERS, COMPETITORS, ECONOMY]
**What we're unsure about:** [THE BIG UNKNOWNS]
**Information to use:** [PASTE DATA, REPORTS, NOTES]

Steps:
1. Separate what is fairly predictable (trends already under way) from the critical uncertainties (high impact, genuinely unknown).
2. Pick the two most important uncertainties and use them as axes of a 2x2. Sketch all four combinations in a line each, then develop the three that are most distinct and most relevant to the strategic question (not just best, base, and worst case). Give each a memorable name.
3. For each scenario, describe how the next three years unfold year by year, and what it means for our customers, revenue, costs, and capabilities.
4. For each scenario, list what would need to be true for it to happen, and the signposts that would tell us early it's becoming real.

Return:
1. Predictable trends vs. critical uncertainties, and the 2x2 with the quadrant left out and why.
2. The three scenarios (a short narrative each).
3. A table: Scenario | What must be true | Signposts to watch | Implications for us | Best response.
4. No-regret moves that make sense in all three scenarios, and options worth keeping open.

Rules: scenarios are tools for thinking, not forecasts; don't assign false precision. Separate facts I gave you from your assumptions, and mark figures as [ESTIMATE] or [ADD DATA].
```

## What to fill in

- WHAT WE DO, for whom, current position
- e.g. "Should we invest in entering the mid-market?"
- THE BIG UNKNOWNS
- PASTE DATA, REPORTS, NOTES
- ESTIMATE
- ADD DATA

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.