Whenever I think about the subject of planning, a quote from Benjamin Franklin always pops into my mind: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Successful people, and successful businesses, all know how important planning is. But in a world of accelerating technology-driven change, what kind of planning are you doing? From a results perspective, there are basically two types of plans, and it’s important to be able to distinguish between the two in theory as well as practice.

First, there’s incremental planning. This is the type of planning most large and small companies do. Growth is forecasted to rise in a rational and incremental way. Innovation is focused around logical extensions of current product and service offerings. There is an ongoing focus on reducing costs by implementing new lean strategies and there is a heightened focus on being agile so businesses can react more quickly to changes in the marketplace...