Over the past month I have been interviewing stakeholders for a client's strategic planning process.  The interviews have sought feedback on strategic options open to the client.  The options range from "keep on being whatever the client wants us to be" to "identify a few big opportunities and really commit to tackling them."   The feedback I am getting from these interviews is that most stakeholders believe the organization will grow much faster and have much greater impact and success if it opts to focus on a few big opportunities rather than continue to "be what the client wants us to be."   Is that a surprise?  Maybe not, but in thinking about most of my client work over the years I recognize that lack of focus has been a big issue.  In fact, I think lack of focus is a bigger barrier to greater success than often recognized. Surely it's a continuing challenge that most of us grapple with. 

A key aspect of developing transformational strategies is understanding the landscape that needs to be traversed by the organization on the way to greater success.  Strategic planners develop an environmental scan to identify the external factors that are likely to have a large impact on the organization as it goes down the road. Factors to be considered in an external environmental scan might include but are hardly limited to economic indicators and forecasts, legislative and governmental trends, technological developments, energy and ecological factors, social trends and values, agricultural and food forecasts, labor concerns and trends, transportation forecasts, and much more. The question arises:  Where does one get this information on a timely and comprehensive basis?