THORSTEN Heins, the new CEO of Research in Motion, has been plucked from the relative obscurity of the chief operating officer position to fill the giant shoes of two longtime co-CEOs as they depart at the behest of angry investors. Having pioneered the smartphone industry with its BlackBerry, RIM is dangerously adrift. The industry is moving at warp speed, and RIM has dwindling resources to deploy against innumerable innovation challenges, particularly from Apple. How can RIM (and other companies in the same boat) chart an effective strategy in such uncertainty? Successful strategic planning requires:

DEFINING CHALLENGES. A frank dialogue about strategy in times of uncertainty often produces a range of opinions. But dig deeper and you’ll find that this diversity usually corresponds with how different executives have framed the problem. Heins needs to make sure up front that he carefully defines the company’s challenges. Is it the firm’s small base of application developers, or its lack of key apps? Is it Apple’s consumer appeal, or the declining influence of corporate information technology managers?

IDENTIFYING A CLEAR DESTINATION. It’s important to frame strategic discussions around a menu of choices that are tied directly to agreed upon definitions of the main challenges at hand. The leap from present circumstances to a chosen future doesn’t need to occur overnight, but the destination has to be clear. RIM could opt to double down on the corporate market, broadening its business from device-maker into fields such as mobile security and bandwidth management. Alternatively, it could make the most of its strong position in emerging markets to focus on low-cost smartphones.

CONCEIVING SMART OPTIONS. In turbulent environments, it’s important to create strategic options through mechanisms such as partnering or incubating new business models. These moves require limited investment while providing critical hedges against unexpected changes in the marketplace. RIM has placed a shoot-for-the-moon bet on a new operating system to be released near the end of 2012. But in the interim it could have released simpler, more rugged tablets specifically tailored to its corporate customers.

Developing effective strategy in tumultuous times requires breaking with old habits and having difficult discussions. A robust strategy is most important not when there’s smooth sailing but when big storms loom directly ahead.

Steve Wunker is managing director of New Markets Advisors and the author of Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don’t.

In Photo: Heins