Programs

Strategy · Facilitator-led

Annual Planning Cycle

One sourced risk report, four planning documents and a rehearsal, over six weeks, that set next year's plan and check this year's budget.

A six-week program for leadership teams entering planning season, run as one room and one live session a week, assigned by the CEO or a nominated facilitator, built on Renatus. One research room and four document rooms, then one simulation room · Six weeks, one room a week · Unlimited attempts · Runs again next planning season.

6 weeks · 6 rooms · Total time 2 hours 35 min

Who it's for: Leadership teams of five to twelve, each owning a function: chief executives, chief operating and financial officers, and the heads of the functions that make up the team.
Cadence: 6 weeks
Format: Facilitator-led
Program sessions: 6

Who it's for

Leadership teams of five to twelve, each owning a function: chief executives, chief operating and financial officers, and the heads of the functions that make up the team.

Output

A sourced risk report, a business model map, three priorities with evidence, an execution plan with named owners and dates, and a variance review that separates the structural misses from the noise
A scored report on defending the plan, with the moment that earned each score and a trajectory across every attempt
For the facilitator, each week's report ready before the session and a team report once three leaders have finished the simulation
Scored against published frameworks: the Minto Pyramid Principle and Aristotelian rhetoric after Heinrichs; the risk report rests on named, cited sources, and the planning documents are built on the Business Model Canvas, SWOT and TOWS analysis with RICE scoring, a critical path with OKRs, and variance classification discipline

Program contents

Risks to the plan — Risk Assessment
Business model clarity — Business Model Analysis
The year's priorities — Strategic Priorities
Execution ownership — Execution Plan
The budget check — Budget vs Plan Variance
Defending the plan — Presentation Under Pressure

How the program works

The rooms

Risk Assessment

Research

Set-up: the industry, the sub-sector, the region and the owner's role.

Business Model Analysis

Framework

The owner gives the business in two sentences, or works from an uploaded plan.

Strategic Priorities

Framework

Five areas in order: the current situation, what is generating the most value right now, what is consuming energy without proportional return, the three things to focus on next, and what would prevent execution.

Execution Plan

Framework

Six areas: the goal, specific and dated; where things stand now; the things that must happen in order; who owns each, where Ren pushes for a named individual and will not accept a team; the risks; and how progress will be known.

Budget vs Plan Variance

Framework

Set-up: the period being reviewed, the plan it is measured against, the headline budget lines and actuals, the variances already known to the team, and who the review is for.

Presentation Under Pressure

Simulation

Calibration: role title, the audience named in the week 6 set-up note, a single senior stakeholder, the board, the executive committee or a hostile external audience, the industry or sector, and a line of working context, with the organisation's website as an option.

Why this program exists

A leadership team writes next year's plan once a year, usually from last year's numbers plus a percentage, a risk register with the dates changed, and a budget that locks before anyone has worked out why this year's missed. This program prepares them through one sourced report, four documents built from what the team states, and a rehearsal in front of the audience the plan is defended to, run as one room and one live session a week for six weeks. Ren researches the risks to the plan from named sources, builds the business model, the year's priorities, the execution plan and the honest variance review from what the team states in the room, and then plays the board, the committee or the senior stakeholder the finished plan is presented to.

What you'll achieve

A sourced risk report, rated by likelihood and impact, with a confidence rating on every section
A business model map with the exposures named, three priorities backed by evidence and a stop list, and an execution plan with a named owner and a date on every milestone
A variance review that classifies every material miss and says what next year's budget must correct
A scored report on presenting the plan under challenge, with the moment that earned each score, and unlimited attempts charted against every attempt before it

At a glance

Who it's for: Leadership teams of five to twelve, each owning a function, setting a plan and a budget for the year ahead: chief executives, chief operating and financial officers, and the heads of the functions that make up the team. It works for a single company or for a group with several business units, where each unit runs the cycle for itself. It assumes the team already runs the business day to day and needs the outside evidence, the internal honesty and the rehearsal that planning season otherwise skips.
Cadence: 6 weeks
1: Risks to the plan · Risk Assessment · Read the materialising risks and the confidence ratings
2: Business model clarity · Business Model Analysis · Read the exposures and the verdict
3: The year's priorities · Strategic Priorities · Read the three priorities and the stop list
4: Execution ownership · Execution Plan · Read the milestones, the owners and the dates
5: The budget check · Budget vs Plan Variance · Read the decision and the buried variances
6: Defending the plan · Presentation Under Pressure · Read Lead Argument and Question Response; read the team report

Session by session

Week 1: Risks to the plan

Get an evidenced, rated view of the risks facing the team's market, before anyone proposes a priority.

Risk Assessment

Week 2: Business model clarity

Map how the business creates, delivers and captures value, and name where it is exposed.

Business Model Analysis

Week 3: The year's priorities

Choose three priorities for the year, backed by evidence, and name what stops to make room.

Strategic Priorities

Week 4: Execution ownership

Turn priority one into a plan with a named owner and a date on every milestone.

Execution Plan

Week 5: The budget check

Classify this year's variances honestly, so next year's budget corrects the structural misses and stops reacting to noise.

Budget vs Plan Variance

Week 6: Defending the plan

Present the finished plan and the budget it needs to the audience it will be defended to, and hold ground.

Presentation Under Pressure

Whether a market is real, where it is growing, and where the opportunity sits

How an entire industry is structured, who controls it, and where it is heading

Who controls a market, how they compete, and where the real gaps are

Who buys in a market, what drives their decisions, and where the unmet needs are

What competitors charge in a market, how pricing is structured, and what customers will pay

Who supplies the critical inputs to a market, how concentrated it is, and what switching costs

The technology deployed in a sector, and where competitive advantage moves next

How product reaches the buyer in a market, and where channel power is shifting

Financials, leadership, strategy, and reputation on a company

Deep dive into how a company operates strategically, and where it is most exposed

Revenue, margins, cash, debt, and auditor signals on a company

How a company is perceived across customers, employees, media, and ESG

Discover a country's GDP, political environment, infrastructure, and outlook

Discover a city's GDP, economic drivers, workforce, and trajectory

Trade flows, tariffs, agreements, and friction points between two countries

Background, current state, key actors, evidence, and where an issue is heading

What a policy does, who wins and loses, and how it lands in practice

The specific risks facing a market — ranked, evidenced, and with the signals to watch

Single-source exposures, concentration, and trade-route risk for a market

Climate, governance, social, and controversy risk in a sector

Pending legislation, enforcement shifts, and where the rules are likely to change

Licensing, compliance, recent changes, and pending legislation in a jurisdiction

Government stability, policy direction, and the political risks facing a market

What a role pays — verified across named salary databases and job posting data

Whether to take a job at a company, with the evidence behind the answer

Who the credible candidates are, what they earn, and how the search will unfold

How a career in an industry works — entry, paths, pay, and prospects

The three things that will move a business forward this quarter

A 90-day plan that turns a strategy into something a team can act on Monday

Segment, positioning, channels, and pricing — tested against each other so the four hold together

A positioning the market can place — and a category claim worth defending

A pricing strategy that the market accepts and the business can defend in negotiation

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Targets, thresholds and cadence

Whether an opportunity is worth pursuing — with conditions or risks named

The real problem behind the surface one, with options and a recommended next step

How a business creates, delivers, and captures value — and where it is exposed

Where work is breaking, where capability is missing, and the one structural change worth making

Build, buy, partner, or wait — with the killer assumption named

Whether a specific partnership is worth pursuing — with the asymmetries named

The right financing structure for the opportunity — tested against fit, cost, and flexibility

A fundraise structured to close on terms worth living with

Every variance classified — structural, timing, one-off or noise — with the call the pattern demands

How long the cash lasts across three scenarios, with the killer assumption named

Whether the per-unit economics hold up — with the killer assumption named

Whether the pay set serves the talent strategy, with the cost of fixing it

A board report that lands the narrative, the KPIs, the exceptions, and the decisions requested

What metrics are missing, misleading, or quietly rewarding the wrong thing

A complete business plan ready to put in front of investors, partners, or a board

A career decision weighed against criteria that matter, with a pre-mortem and a verdict

What matters most, what you would give up, and what stays true under pressure

Which option holds up under income loss, rate moves, or a downturn

A relocation decision and plan, with the trade-offs each destination forces

What the culture is like — values in practice, leadership behaviour, and where the gap sits

Strategy clarity, alignment, talent density, ways of working, and trust in leadership

What's energising people, what's draining them, and the levers that would move engagement

The patterns in how a person handles pressure, conflict, collaboration, and decisions

PENDING — product being redesigned. See Replit brief.

How a person leads — defaults, strengths, blind spots, and development areas

Real strengths backed by evidence — and the cost each one carries when overplayed

The values revealed by what a person has held the line on, refused, or regretted

What every role owns, what's silently dropped, and which handoffs are breaking

Where the team is aligned on priorities and goals, and where dangerous gaps sit

Where trust, conflict handling, and accountability are strong — and where they break

Any subject explained to a real listener, scored on accuracy, depth, audience adaptation, and handling the unknown

A presentation rehearsal scored on lead argument, evidence, question response, and poise

A stakeholder-influence rehearsal scored on reading the room, framing, negotiation, and durability

A managing-up rehearsal scored on positioning, evidence, flexibility, and outcome

A meeting rehearsal scored on structure, air-time management, progress, and closure

The conversation that's been avoided, with an assessment of how the conversation went

A saying-no rehearsal scored on clarity, rationale, alternative, and relationship

A performance-conversation rehearsal scored on clarity, ownership, empathy, and path forward

A team-conflict rehearsal scored on directness, fairness, action, and aftercare

A hiring interview rehearsal scored on question design, follow-up, bias, and assessment integrity

A leadership crisis scored on decision quality, communication, strategy, and pressure response

A negotiation rehearsal scored on preparation, anchoring, concession pattern, and pressure response

A strategic-decision rehearsal scored on framing, information use, trade-off recognition, and time horizon

An ethics rehearsal where the right path is costly, scored on recognition and response

A prioritisation rehearsal scored on triage, trade-off recognition, communication, and revisability