Facing the Future: Scanning, Synthesizing and Sense-Making in Horizon Scanning

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Facing the Future Scanning, Synthesizing and
Sense-Making in Horizon Scanning
Ahti Salo1, Totti Könnölä2, Cristiano
Cagnin3, Vicente Carabias3, and Eeva Vilkkumaa1
1Aalto University School of Science, Espoo
(Finland) 2Impetu Solutions, Madrid
(Spain) 3JRC-IPTS, Seville (Spain)
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Homepage
http//sal.aalto.fi/ahti
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By Portfolio Decision Analysis (PDA) we mean a
body of theory, methods, and practice which seeks
to help decision makers make informed multiple
selections from a discrete set of alternatives
through mathematical modeling that accounts for
relevant constraints, preferences, and
uncertainties.
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Facing the Future
What is Horizon Scanning?
Horizon Scanning

• is regarded here as a creative process of
  collective sense-making by way of collecting and
  synthesizing observations that hold potential for
  the formulation of pertinent future developments
  and the derivation of actionable implications on
  decision-making
• Sense-making builds on the actors ability to
  perceive, interpret and construct meaning of the
  emerging landscape

Key Questions in Horizon Scanning Activities

• How to facilitate the recognition of signals?
• How to facilitate the elaboration of
  corresponding policy issues?
• How to synthesize such signals and issues into
  meaningful theme clusters?
• How to facilitate collective sense-making in the
  analysis of theme clusters?
• How to clarify the big picture of societal
  change?
• How to develop well-founded policy
  recommendations?

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Facing the Future
Outline
Sense-making in Horizon Scanning

• Scoping the Scanning Exercise
• Sense-making Inseparable from Scanning
• Stakeholders Crucial for Scanning and
  Synthesizing
• Building Ground for Cross-Cutting Policy
  Coordination

Case Facing the Future

• Identification of Issues
• Assessment of Issues
• Synthesizing Issues
• Reflecions on the Exercise

Discussion
Conclusions
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Facing the Future
Sense-making in Horizon Scanning
Scoping the Scanning Exercise

• Involves decisions about what signals are worth
  scanning ? Across a comprehensive spectrum
  ? Focused on specific fields such as energy,
  health and cognitive enhancement

Sense-making Inseparable from Scanning

• Drivers of change, emerging issues, trends, weak
  signals, wild cards/shocks
• Presence of scattered or no historical evidence
• Defining units of analysis that facilitate the
  collection of individual observations and,
  moreover, the creative combination thereof to
  permit the creation of new entities and meanings
• Whatever the methods, sense-making lies at the
  heart of well-founded support for policy making.

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Facing the Future
Sense-making in Horizon Scanning
Stakeholders Crucial for Scanning and
Synthesizing

• Horizon scanning should engage diverse
  stakeholders
• Diversity of ? coverage of different fields of
  expertise, ? types of affiliations, ? cultural
  backgrounds, ? organizational functions or ?
  personal values
• Resulting in a richer set of interesting
  observations to be synthesized through shared
  development of cross-cutting challenges

Building Ground for Cross-Cutting Policy
Coordination

• Participatory workshop activities offer policy
  makers an inspiring environment
• Exposing them to concrete issues, synthesized
  into meaningful clusters that exhibit some
  logical structure and link to existing
  decision-making structures
• Collaborative development of cross-cutting
  challenges may help reframe the Bigger Picture
  the exploration of which paves way for policy
  coordination and the attainment of systemic
  policy objectives

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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future (Boden et al., 2010)
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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future (Boden et al., 2010)
Identification of 381 Issues in 6 areas
(i) 73 demography, migration and health issues
(ii) 44 economy, trade and financial flows
issues (iii) 90 environment, energy, climate
change and agriculture issues (iv) 80 research,
innovation and (e)-education issues (v) 52
(e)-governance and (e)-social cohesion issues
(vi) 42 defence and security issues Generated by
analyzing in each area 25 recent forward-looking
reports and policy documents, ? published by
international organisations or the business
sector, ? covered more than one of six areas
being analysed, ? exhibited global scope, and ?
had been developed using a participatory approach
Assessment of 381 issues on a seven-point
Likert-scale

• Relevance to EU policy making
• Novelty in comparison with earlier policy
  debates
• Probability of occurrence by 2025

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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future (Boden et al., 2010)
Analysis of Issues

• Expert assessments were synthesized with Robust
  Portfolio Modelling (RPM).
• Mean-oriented analysis helped identify issues
  that were considered relevant, novel and probable
  by the majority respondents
• Variance-oriented analysis was conducted in order
  to recognize issues on which the respondents had
  different viewpoints
• Rare event-oriented analysis was carried out to
  identify those issues that the respondents
  considered improbable but still novel and
  relevant
• The three complementary RPM analyses helped
  highlight issues which were seen to merit
  attention from different perspectives and thus
  paved way for the formulation of cross-cutting
  challenges.

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Expert evaluations
Evaluations for Issue 1 Evaluations for Issue 1 Evaluations for Issue 1
Expert Nov. Rel.
1 4 5
2 7 5
3 3 7
4 6 6
5 1 4
6 6 4
7 7 3
8 2 5
Mean 4.5 4.9
Std dev 2.3 1.2
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Evaluations of multiple issues
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Mean-oriented analysis
Issues
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Combining issues into portfolios
Issues
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Portfolios of issues
All portfolios of two issues
Issues
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Portfolio dominance
Every portfolio in the shaded area yields more of
both relevance and novelty
Portfolios that are not dominated
Similar analysis for all portfolios yields.
No 1 3 yields more of both relevance and
novelty
Is 34 a good portfolio?
Issues
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Non-dominated portfolios (ND portfolios)
The selected portfolio should be non-dominated
Non-dominated porfolios
Non-dominated portfolios
Issues
Dominated portfolios (inferior to some ND
portfolios)
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Comparing issues
If issue 4 is selected the resulting
portfolio will be dominated
Therefore, no definitive recommendation can be
given regarding issue 2
Therefore it is recommended that issue 1 should
be selected into the portfolio
If issue 1 is not selected the resulting
portfolio is dominated
All issues can be categorized with these three
cases
If issue 2 is selected, there remain both
dominated and non-dominated portfolios, depending
on which other issues are in the portfolio
Therefore it is recommended that issue 4 should
not be selected to the portfolio
Issue 2 is in some ND portfolios
Issue 4 is in no ND portfolio
Issue 1 is in all ND portfolios
Which issues to pursue further?
Non-dominated porfolios
In all ND portfolios (Core) In some ND portfolios
(Borderline) In no ND portfolios (Exterior)
Issues
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Comparing issues with stated preference
information
Knowing that novelty is more important than
relevance changes the dominance region
Dominated portfolios remain dominated but some ND
portfolios become dominated
The set of ND portfolios changes which also
effects the decision recommendations
from this
to this.
Non-dominated porfolios
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In all ND portfolios (Core) In some ND portfolios
(Borderline) In no ND portfolios (Exterior)
Issues
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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future
Analysis of Issues
Variance-oriented analysis Novelty gt Relevance gt
Probability (variance)
Mean-oriented analysis Relevance gt Novelty gt
Probability (means)
Rare event oriented analysis Inverse probability
gt Novelty gt Relevance (means)

• 100 issues score best independent of the used
  criteria preferences
• 50 issues that score well, but are sensitive to
  criteria preferences

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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future
Synthesizing Issues
Experts and policy-makers grouped in a workshop
the identified issues into cross-cutting
challenges and examined their policy implications
for the EU.
Save natural resources (water, food) to prevent conflicts over their scarcity and other impacts such as migration Save natural resources (water, food) to prevent conflicts over their scarcity and other impacts such as migration Save natural resources (water, food) to prevent conflicts over their scarcity and other impacts such as migration
Area No. Issue code Key words from the issue description (optional)
1 DI04 Massive migration due to climate change
3 ENV03 Global under-pricing and overconsumption of water
3 ENV68 Global decline of freshwater availability leading to an increase in water scarcity
3 ENV70 Global decline in biodiversity and loss of ecosystems services
6 DS13 Attacks on infrastructure facilities
6 DS15 A major war by 2020
6 DS81 Pervasive sensors for real-time surveillance widely diffused
Table 2 Example of a cross-cutting challenge
consisting of issues from all three analyses and
from different thematic areas (Demography,
Environment, and Defence Security) font styles
of issue codes refer to the results obtained in
the different RPM analyses (http//foresight.jrc.e
c.europa.eu/survey_issues.pdf, visited
01/04/2011).
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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future
Synthesizing Issues

• Participants generated collectively 22
  cross-cutting challenges, which were prioritized
  by discussing in the light of three
  solution-oriented criteria related to their
  importance at the EU level
• - Urgency Is the challenge likely to provoke
  impacts that require urgent actions at EU level?
• - Tractability Can solutions to the challenge
  be identified and implemented? Does the EU have
  the institutional capacity to act upon this
  challenge?
• Impact Are the actions to be taken by the EU
  expected to have a major global positive impact?
• By the end of the workshop, a workable agreement
  was reached on the definition of the following
  three overarching challenges
• (i) The need to change ways in which essential
  natural resources are used.
• (ii) The need to anticipate and adapt to
  societal changes.
• (iii) The need for more effective and
  transparent governance for the EU and the world.

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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future
Synthesizing Issues
These challenges were the basis for the three
broad recommendations which, according to the
workshop participants, had so far not received
sufficient attention in policy and decision
processes (Boden et al., 2010) (i) The need to
change uses of essential natural resources by
aligning all policy realms towards
sustainability, extending from policy design
through implementation to evaluation (ii) The
need to anticipate and adapt to societal
challenges by building on social diversity and
ICTs to enable citizens' empowerment (iii) The
need for more effective and transparent
governance that allows institutions to anticipate
future challenges and to turn these into
opportunities by embedding FTA in their decision
making processes
Reflections on the Exercise

• Collective sense-making process where emerging
  issues were first identified and then synthesized
  into challenges to be dealt with at EU level
• Traceability of cross-cutting challenges and
  recommendations was supported by the appropriate
  coding of issues and challenges

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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future
Policy recommendations

• (i) Policy alignment towards sustainability
• Reform in the agri-system
• Reduction in the EU's dependency on resources
• Increase in levels of education and social
  awareness
• Appropriate and effective management of migration
  flows caused by from climate change, improving
  the quality of life, and recognition of labour
  market needs in ageing societies
• Change in the policy paradigm based on GDP to an
  updated system which also considers ecological
  flows and stocksfs

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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future
Policy recommendations

• (ii) Social diversity and ICTs for citizen
  empowerment
• Build new incentives to facilitate and strengthen
  relationships between different social systems
• Develop the necessary means to enhance education
  on the use of ICTs in conjunction with other
  technologies
• Improve the quality of education by fostering,
  for example, competition within and between EU
  national education systems
• Regulate the healthcare system, harnessing new
  technologies to provide equal access for all
• Develop radically new and far more efficient
  forms of social protection
• Enhance regional specialisation through the
  formation of regional RTDI clusters

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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future
Policy recommendations

• (iii) Anticipating future challenges and turning
  these into opportunities
• Embed forward looking techniques in EU policy
  making
• Foster mutual understanding through
  ongoing/inclusive dialogue both within the EU and
  worldwide to build shared values, common visions,
  actions, and smart regulations
• Enable effective and adaptive international
  organisations to become a reality
• Establish partnerships between industry-government
  -society
• Clarify the role and status of the EU in global
  fora and balance its representation in
  international organisations
• Foster (e)participation and (e)democracy through
  the use of web 2.0 and advanced technologies

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Facing the Future
Case Facing the Future
Reflections on the Exercise

• Recommendations used in discussions within the
  European Commission, the report was referenced in
  the Communication on the Innovation Union

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Facing the Future
Discussion
A distinctive and defining feature of horizon
scanning is that there are no strong a priori
constraints on what signals could count as
relevant
Horizon Scanning

• Is inherently a bottom-up process where results
  from individual sense-making activities are
  followed by collective processes where the
  scanners take stock of and learn from each
  others signals
• Activities contribute to the design of systemic
  policies which far from being monolithic and
  inflexible contribute to the attainment of
  systemic policy objectives by supporting the
  timely recognition of the interconnectedness of
  actions

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Facing the Future
Conclusions
Horizon scanning need not be limited to the
collection of future-oriented observations
rather, the scope of these activities can be
extended to include creative and collective
sense-making processes for synthesizing
observations into cross-cutting challenges and
also for exploring the policy implications of
these challenges in collaborative
workshops. This methodological approach which
had well-defined phases for the systematic
bottom-up scanning of issues and for the
prioritization and clustering thereof is viable
even in other contexts where there is a need to
build shared understandings about the prospects
of cross-cutting coordination in support of
systemic policy objectives.
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7 Shocks Finland

• Action portfolio analysis

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Process
Dates Task Result
Jun Selecting the 7 most interesting shocks from 14 candidates 7 shock environments (scenarios). For additional depth, 3 opposite environments were also described.
Early Oct Web-questionnaire create ideas for actions that would help to build success in each environment
Late Oct Web-questionnaire to assess utility of the 25 actions in each of the 7 environments
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7 Environments, 3 opposite environments
Most interresting
Internet crashes
EMU dissolves (Opposite environment European
federalism gains strength)
Storms of the century
Nokia leaves Finland
China is in trouble
Forest industry leaves Finland (Opposite
environment Booming modern biorefineries)
Price of energy drops 90 (Opposite environment
Price of energy goes up 300)
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Process
Dates Task Result
Jun Selecting the 7 most interesting shocks from 14 candidates 7 shock environments (scenarios)
Early Oct Web interview to create ideas for actions that would help to build success in each environment Visited 128 times, median time spent on site 18 minutes 245 ideas, from which the 25 final actions were chosen
Late Oct Web-questionnaire to assess utility of the 25 actions in each of the 7 environments
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Actions for each environment
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25 Actions

• 1. Invest in maintaining trust in the society
• 2. Security and resilience requirements for
  information networks
• 3. Take care of small networked production
• 4. Prepare to increase self-sufficiency in food
  production
• 5. Increase respect for every type of work
• 6. Promote innovation for a rainy-day
• 7. Tax incentives for energy self-sufficient
  housing
• 8. Tax incentives for urban local food
• 9. Create an ICT-ecosystem
• 10. Develop services that require little energy
• 11. Invest in sustainable well-being know-how
• 12. Finland a global IT-service center for public
  authorities
• 13. Invest in new rapidly exploitable knowledge
  combinations

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25 Actions

• 14. Let the forest industry disappear
• 15. Build more nuclear power to hedge against
  price shocks
• 16. Commercialize forest into an investment
  product
• 17. Manage a single global service
• 18. Train workforce as the reserve for global
  companies
• 19. Switch to exchange economy with no currency
• 20. Establish a Nordic monetary union
• 21. Make Finland the center for Asian and Russian
  connections
• 22. Specialize in fast piloting
• 23. Exploit Finland's neutral and apolitical
  reputation
• 24. Create Finnish Mittelstand to replace Nokia
• 25. Invest in trade outside the EU

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25 Actions

• 1. Invest in maintaining trust in the society.
  Even internet failure does not cause as much
  problems in Finland as it does elsewhere. We can
  mutually agree that suppliers dispatch goods to
  stores, trusting that they will eventually be
  paid. Likewise, stores will advance store credit
  to consumers.
• 2. Security and resilience requirements for
  information networks. Let's build systems that
  consist of several smaller systems - local
  networks and separated cloud services which are
  connected by an integrating layer in order to
  keep the whole system from crashing in case one
  part of it goes down. All routing is implemented
  in such a way that these networks can be
  connected to alternate cloud services if some
  part collapses,
• 3. Take care of small networked production. The
  bigger the systems, the more far-reaching the
  consequences of failures. Cell-like production of
  goods and services is also dependent on global
  networks, but its resilience is better. The first
  player to restore services gets an advantage over
  slower competitors.
• 4. Prepare to increase self-sufficiency in food
  production. As the crisis lengthens, local food
  production would become increasingly vital.
  Seasonal radio shows, that give tips for fishing
  and gathering berries and mushrooms. Small,
  currently worthless fish should be caught and
  turned into fish-fingers.
• 5. Increase respect for every type of work. Start
  a major PR campaign to promote the idea that any
  form of self-employment is beneficial, and
  unemployment is damaging.

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25 Actions

• 6. Promote innovation for a rainy days. National
  "Google time", in which every (employed) citizen
  can use maybe a fifth of their time to work on
  resilience-improving ideas for extreme
  environments.
• 7. Tax incentives for energy self-sufficient
  housing. Direct support or tax deductions for
  micro production equipment. For example,
  miniature wind generators on all yards and
  balconies.
• 8. Tax incentives for urban local food. Local
  food production should be encouraged with
  taxation. For example, using your balcony as a
  greenhouse should be tax deductible according to
  its production.
• 9. Create an ICT-ecosystem. In an ecosystem
  individual knowledge workers can network globally
  and sell their expertise to anywhere in the
  world.
• 10. Develop services that require little energy.
  Investment in companies offering expert services.
  These are not as dependent on energy prices, and
  are able to continue their business more or less
  as usual, even when faced with higher energy
  prices.

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25 Actions

• 11. Invest in sustainable well-being know-how.
  The whole world badly needs a new vision and
  societal model based on sustainable well-being.
  Finland could be the forerunner of this trend,
  based on our strong social model.
• 12. Finland a global IT-service center for public
  authorities. Finland has the world's most
  efficient tax collection system, medical
  administrative systems and other public sector IT
  systems. These could be sold as cloud services to
  the whole world, producing cashflow without
  having to shift large amounts of physical matter.
• 13. Invest in new rapidly exploitable knowledge
  combinations. Let's combine old and new, but
  already existing, knowledge, and cut back on
  developing longer-term development with higher
  expertise requirements.
• 14. Let the forest industry disappear. We should
  allow forest industry to wither away in Finland,
  and develop service-based and other timber-sector
  jobs. These are less cyclical.
• 15. Build more nuclear power to hedge against
  price shocks. Building additional nuclear
  capacity offers protection from price shocks.
  Price of uranium fuel is a small fraction of the
  cost of electricity generation.

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25 Actions

• 16. Commercialize forest into an investment
  product. Land area does not grow, forest area is
  declining, and forest are good carbon sinks.
  Based on this, Finnish forests are productized as
  an investment opportunity and sold by the hectare
  to international investors.
• 17. Manage a single global service. Finland could
  control any market or a globally used service
  that is not currency-dependent, but in which
  other countries would be connected to our
  systems. For example tax collection.
• 18. Train workforce as the reserve for global
  companies. We should make sure that our global
  companies have the necessary employee resources
  when market growth picks up. If they are the only
  operating companies, their demand goes up and
  they need more people. Let's train reserves in
  advance.
• 19. Switch to exchange economy with no
  currency. Golden era for small producers. Back to
  barter economy.
• 20. Establish a Nordic monetary union. Nordic
  countries start collaborating on the same export
  markets, in order to compete with other countries
  more effectively. The possibilities for a Nordic
  free trade area and currency union are
  investigated.

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25 Actions

• 21. Make Finland the center for Asian and Russian
  connections. Creating a new kind of hotspot for
  growing start-ups together with Russian
  entrepreneurs could turn Finland into an European
  innovation hub.
• 22. Specialize in fast piloting. We'll specialize
  in piloting. When market conditions change, new
  pilot projects take off. They are started with
  those companies and countries that are most
  advanced in their development work at that point.
  
• 23. Exploit Finland's neutral and apolitical
  reputation. Finland's image as an apolitical and
  neutral country needs to be utilized. For Chinese
  (as well as others) it is safe to trade with
  Finns, to work for a Finnish company, or to buy
  Finnish products.
• 24. Create Finnish Mittelstand to replace Nokia.
  Building a sufficient network of globally
  operating slightly smaller companies that get a
  boost to their activities if Nokia leaves
  Finland.
• 25. Invest in trade outside the EU. Government
  encourages strongly companies to diversify their
  exports to countries outside the EU, such as
  Russia, Asia and Africa.

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Process
Dates Task Result
Jun Selecting the 7 most interesting shocks from 14 candidates 7 shock environments (scenarios)
Early Oct Web-questionnaire create ideas for actions that would help to build success in each environment Visited 128 times, median time spent on site 19 minutes 245 ideas, from which the 25 final actions were chosen
Late Oct Web-questionnaire to assess utility of the 25 actions in each of the 7 environments Visited 59 times, median time 18 minutes Identification of action combinations (portfolios) that maximize utility
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Action evaluations / scenario (average, indicates
interest)
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Utilities
Internet crashes Forest industry leaves Finland Price of Energy drops 90 EMU collapse Nokia leaves Finland China is in trouble Storms of the century
1. Invest in maintaining trust in the society 87 63 63 80 71 67 68
2. Security and resilience requirements for information networks 86 48 48 48 46 56 76
3. Take care of small networked production 71 72 49 70 71 63 80
4. Prepare to increase self-sufficiency in food production 65 46 37 57 32 56 74
5. Increase respect for every type of work 59 62 58 53 70 74 62
6. Promote innovation for a rainy-day 64 81 77 67 84 81 69
7. Tax incentives for energy self-sufficient housing 55 43 35 50 30 37 48
8. Tax incentives for urban local food 67 38 29 47 21 46 60
9. Create an ICT-ecosystem 60 58 52 55 79 62 45
10. Develop services that require little energy 59 61 41 53 57 58 57
11. Invest in sustainable well-being know-how 59 73 75 72 83 78 68
12. Finland a global IT-service center for public authorities 50 60 51 53 68 42 42
13. Invest in new rapidly exploitable knowledge combinations 54 81 83 71 85 73 62
14. Let the forest industry disappear 29 64 38 31 30 31 25
15. Build more nuclear power to hedge against price shocks 28 41 34 48 48 44 39
16. Commercialize forest into an investment product 33 66 37 41 29 28 39
17. Manage a single global service 30 54 51 53 60 50 37
18. Train workforce as the reserve for global companies 35 48 56 51 65 42 35
19. Switch to exchange economy with no currency 35 30 20 36 16 22 28
20. Establish a Nordic monetary union 31 48 33 70 23 35 26
21. Make Finland the center for Asian and Russian connections 39 68 69 80 78 53 54
22. Specialize in fast piloting 41 74 75 60 85 82 59
23. Exploit Finland's neutral and apolitical reputation 48 61 61 68 62 65 44
24. Create Finnish Mittelstand to replace Nokia 37 80 65 60 76 71 48
25. Invest in trade outside the EU 38 65 61 74 67 58 52
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Process
Dates Task Result
Jun Selecting the 7 most interesting shocks from 14 candidates 7 shock environments (scenarios)
Early Oct Web-questionnaire create ideas for actions that would help to build success in each environment Visited 128 times, median time spent on site 19 minutes 245 ideas, from which the 25 final actions were chosen
Late Oct Web-questionnaire to assess utility of the 25 actions in each of the 7 environments Visited 59 times, median time 18 minutes Identification of action combinations (portfolios) that maximize utility
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Efficient portfolios of 8 actions
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All efficient portfolios
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Conclusions

• There are many ways to facilitate the shaping of
  policy agendas
• Yet it is important to have a clear process
  structure
• Not all details can be modelled (time, effort,
  data, validity)? Informal discussions remain
  crucial