Editor’s note. When we published this article in April 2009, we invited readers to take part in an online survey on changes in their companies’ strategic planning , given today’s challenging economic environment. See the results on page 2, and then tell us what your company is doing.

Strategic-planning season has arrived for many companies, and it couldn’t be more different than it has been in years past. Gone are the days of linear trend-extrapolation exercises that produce base, upside, and downside cases. Strategists, now facing the most profoundly uncertain times in their careers, are creating disaster scenarios that would have been unthinkable until recently and making the preservation of cash integral to their strategies.

Most strategists we know are avoiding the obvious mistakes, such as planning as usual or, conversely, eliminating essential strategy-development activities or even strategic planning itself. Nonetheless, strategists remain deeply—and understandably—concerned that the priorities emerging from the annual planning rituals won’t address the demands of today’s tumultuous environment.

These are uncharted waters, and no one has a clear map for sailing through them. It’s clear that scenario planning, a well-established technique for coping with uncertainty, should play a critical role this year, but executing successfully...