CJP/PresenTense Fellowship, Day 2 Power of Prototypes Developing Business Plan Elements Around Vision

CJP/PresenTense Fellowship, Day 2

Power of PrototypesDeveloping Business Plan Elements Around Vision


What is a Social Venture?

A social venture is a set of actions that seek to bring about a better world.


What is a Social Business Plan?

A Business Plan for a social venture is a brief explaining what actions are being taken to get a certain effect, justifying resources needed


How do we decide what actions?

•Visioning can provide a broad outline of the world that exists once the problem identified has been solved (deliverable 1)

•Clarifying the critical movers (heroes) provides us with the resource base for that action (deliverable 2)

•Understanding one’s operating environment provides a clue as to how others act under similar circumstances. (deliverable 3)

Once that’s done, the venture’s work begins


Start Small, Make Small mistakes

•No world-changing ventures started full scale.

•Most world-changing ventures started off in a different business entirely (Paypal, Post-Its, Etc.)

•Success is best built through Rapid Iteration.

•Rapid Iteration is best through Prototyping.

How do you prototype a service?


•Focus of the exercise: Thought experiment outlining “what success looks like” in a given amount of time.

•Tools: surface to write on, different color markers, post-it notes a plus.

•Methodology: Narrative/Symbolic Vision Expression. Group takes turns to give SMART ideas for the world after it has been impacted by a venture for a period of time.

•Then you step back and tell the story of how you got there.

History of the Future**Developed by the Wagner School for Public Service of

NYU, expanded by PresenTense


Workshop: Test out History of the Future to

build out one Vision


Having the Vision is the easy part. Translating it to action is the important part. Here are the steps to do that:

1. Search what has come out for what is the core Outcome of the venture. That is your goal.

2. Recognize what program results best enable this outcome, and try to quantify those. These are your Outputs, and they become your objectives.

3. Clarify what programs or efforts best produce those outputs. These are your Activities, and they become Tools.

4. Think what materials you need to run these activities. These become your Inputs, and they are the resources you need to gather.

(Deliverable 4 and 5)

Translating the Vision into a Plan


Business/Social Impact Model, Sketched

Inputs Activities Outputs Outcome

e.g: Coordinator, SC, Volunteer Teachers, Print materials, etc.

e.g: Six modules, social media, community work

e.g. 13 engaging Ventures, empowered SC, connections to CJP

e.g. Stronger and more engaged Jewish community


Workshop: Build a path to the future


• Translating your vision thought experiment into a project proposal provides the foundations for a workplan and a budget.

• A workplan takes your actions, and lays them out over the course of a given period.

• A budget takes your workplan’s actions, and assigns the inputs necessary to make those actions happen during the course of a given period.

• Deliverable 4, then 5 and 6 depend on this work• Key to note: without a goal, a set of objectives, and an

understanding of what actions you need to take, there is no project, and no reason to raise resources.

• Second key: Everything you work on needs to reflect what competitors and comparatives are doing in the field.

What do you do next?


• A business plan needs a strong business model at its core

• Business plans differ in their form and function. Generally they are a Marketing Document. Rarely are they a reflection of operations.

• No business plan is stronger than its business model. No business model is stronger than the weakest assumption in its logic model.

• No assumption is strong unless it is tested. Which is what prototypes are for.

• Once you have this down for your venture, materials from this deliverable and others will come together into the base of the plan.

So to get this right, we’ll practice.

What’s the connection to a BizPlan?

Documents

CJP/PresenTense Fellowship, Day 2 Power of Prototypes Developing Business Plan Elements Around Vision