Strategy Is a Bet on a Future That Doesn't Exist Yet...
Editor's Note: The largest decisions in an organization are usually made before the evidence exists.
Organizations approve investments before benefits are realized.
Executives commit to strategies before outcomes are known.
Businesses hire, expand, acquire, build, and transform based on assumptions about a future that has not yet arrived.
In other words:
Every strategy is a forecast.
This week's signals all point toward the same leadership reality:
Organizations are making increasingly large and long-term commitments while simultaneously facing growing uncertainty about whether the future they expect will unfold as planned. Investors are questioning future AI returns even as spending continues to accelerate, while organizations and governments continue placing long-range bets on technologies whose ultimate outcomes remain uncertain.
The challenge is not uncertainty itself.
The challenge is understanding which assumptions matter most when certainty isn't available.
Executive Signal #1
Every Strategy Is a Forecast
What Changed
This week, ASML reported that customers are expressing interest in placing equipment orders for 2029 and 2030, reflecting confidence that AI-driven demand will continue for years into the future. The company also indicated previously planned capacity increases may not be sufficient to meet expected demand.
Closer to home, Tiff Macklem, Governor of the Bank of Canada, noted that while Canada has been a leader in AI innovation, it has not been as successful at converting that innovation into widespread commercial adoption and scaled business value.
Link:
IVPP Assessment
What's interesting isn't the technology.
It's the assumption.
Organizations are making billion-dollar commitments based on beliefs about future demand, productivity, adoption, and value creation.
Whether it's semiconductor manufacturing capacity, AI adoption, workforce planning, or operating model redesign, leadership teams are investing today based on expectations about tomorrow.
This isn't unusual.
It's strategy.
Strategic Implication
The most important assumption in a strategy is often the one that hasn't been tested yet.
Leadership Read-Through
Ask:
Which assumptions are driving our largest investments?
Which assumptions must be true for success to occur?
How often are we revisiting those assumptions?
Executive Signal #2
The Largest Decisions Are Made Before the Evidence Exists
What Changed
This week, investors continued reassessing AI-related spending, financing requirements, and future return expectations as concerns emerged around borrowing costs, infrastructure investments, and the sustainability of projected outcomes.
Markets aren't questioning whether AI matters.
They're questioning whether future benefits will justify current commitments.
Link:
IVPP Assessment
That's a much more interesting question.
Every business case is a forecast.
Every transformation roadmap is a forecast.
Every hiring plan is a forecast.
Every acquisition is a forecast.
Leadership is ultimately the practice of making decisions before enough evidence exists to prove whether those decisions are correct.
Strategic Implication
Waiting for certainty is rarely an option.
Confusing confidence with certainty can be expensive.
Leadership Read-Through
Consider:
Which decisions are being treated as facts rather than forecasts?
Where might confidence be masking uncertainty?
What evidence would cause us to revisit our assumptions?
Executive Signal #3
Belief Creates Momentum. Proof Creates Value.
What Changed
Recent commentary from organizations such as Deloitte Canada, McKinsey, Accenture, and Gartner continues to point toward a common theme: technology deployment alone does not create value. Organizations capture value when they successfully translate technology into changed ways of working, improved decisions, and measurable outcomes.
Notably, Deloitte Canada found that many organizations continue to measure AI primarily through productivity gains and cost savings while broader business outcomes receive less attention.
Link:
IVPP Assessment
Belief gets an investment approved.
Belief secures funding.
Belief creates momentum.
But only outcomes validate whether those beliefs were correct.
Organizations often overestimate how much value comes from the technology itself and underestimate how much value comes from adoption, capability development, governance, and execution.
Strategic Implication
Technology creates possibility.
Organizations create outcomes.
Leadership Read-Through
Ask:
Are we measuring activity or outcomes?
Have we defined what success actually looks like?
What evidence would demonstrate that value is being realized?
What This Means for PMOs
PMOs operate at the intersection of strategy and execution.
Every portfolio contains assumptions.
Every roadmap contains assumptions.
Every business case contains assumptions.
Many organizations focus heavily on managing:
Scope
Schedule
Cost
Risks
Dependencies
Increasingly, they may need to place equal attention on managing assumptions.
From an IVPP perspective, one of the most important questions a PMO can ask is:
Which assumptions behind our largest investments are we actively monitoring?
Because projects rarely fail the day they miss a milestone.
Many projects begin failing the moment a critical assumption stops being true.
Leadership Signal
The Future Never Arrives Exactly as Planned
This may be one of the most overlooked realities in leadership.
Markets shift.
Customers evolve.
Technology advances.
Competitors adapt.
Regulations emerge.
Assumptions break.
The strongest organizations are rarely the ones that predict the future perfectly.
They are the ones that recognize when reality is diverging from their forecast and adapt before everyone else.
IVPP Executive Takeaway
IVPP Leadership Signal
Every strategy is a forecast.
Every investment is a forecast.
Every transformation is a forecast.
The question is not whether your organization is making assumptions about the future.
The question is whether it understands which assumptions matter most.
Strategic Implication
Organizations often spend significant time refining plans.
Far fewer spend the same effort identifying and monitoring the assumptions those plans depend upon.
As uncertainty increases, assumption management may become just as important as project management.
Executive Challenge
If the future unfolds differently than your organization expects, which assumption is most likely to break first?
The answer may reveal more about strategic risk than any dashboard, forecast, or delivery metric.
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