How I designed a process to help small businesses think longer-term

Challenge

Ontario’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs ) are Canada’s largest economic contributors. I wanted to find out how I could help them be most successful.

I conducted this design research to understand how small businesses in Ontario plan long-term.

I conducted semi-structured interviews with decision-makers of SMEs. The SME definition of 500 or fewer employees was divided into four different groups, with two decision-makers interviewed per group: up to 50, 51 -100, 101–300, 301–500.

The key question this research addresses is: How might reverse visioning (i.e., backcasting) aid small and medium enterprises within Ontario to articulate and map out long-term strategy?

In order to answer this, the following additional questions needed to be addressed:

• How do SMEs in Ontario currently articulate strategy? Do they use visioning and if not, should they?
• Do SMEs in Ontario currently practice backcasting?
• How can the current strategic planning practices be critiqued and improved?
• What insights can be gathered to inform the design of improved practice?

Process