Future Scenarios

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Future Scenarios

• The Art of Storytelling

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Definitions

• Scenario-based planning is a creative,
  forward-looking, open-ended search for patterns
  that might emerge in an industry
• At its best, it discovers entirely new patterns
  that no one else has recognized
• Research data analysis intuition thinking
  creativity scenario planning
• Scenarios are learning tools

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Definitions

• They are stories that help suspend disbelief in
  possible futures
• Scenarios are a powerful tool for forcing us to
  abandon previously fixed ideas
• Scenario planning is the application of visual
  dialogue

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Early Uses

• Military Think Tanks
• To Influence Public Attitudes

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Pierre Wack The Mystic

• To see, Wack said, means not merely being
  aware of an element of your environment, but
  seeing through it, with full consciousness.

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Two Schools of Thought

• Risk-Reduction School
• Revolutionary School

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Forms of Strategic Modeling

• Trend-impact analysis
• Cross-impact analysis
• Decision scenarios

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Decision Scenarios

• The rules for success with decision scenarios
  are few but they are unforgiving if ignored.
  First, the scenarios must be relevant. Second,
  the development of the scenarios must be a team
  effort between operating managers and planners.

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What Makes A Scenario Planner?

• Researcher extraordinary
• Flexible perspective
• A lover of constant education
• Need to be aware of the fringes
• Intuitive
• A collaborator
• Inspirator
• Committed and passionate about the work

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The Process of Creating

• Identify the focal issue or decision
• Identify the driving forces
• Predetermined elements
• Critical uncertainties
• Writing the scenarios

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The Process of Creating

• Interviews
• Feedback
• Workshops

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How Many Scenarios?

• It all depends on the company you choose to use,
  but make make you have a base case.
• Some use two because they believe the use of two
  scenarios is a tactic to make them easier to
  implement.
• GBN tends to use four scenarios.
• NCRI has used as many as eight business models
  but they are paired sets of alternatives.

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Communicating Scenarios

• Opening remarks should describe the uses of
  scenarios, or offer a success story
• Clearly present the question under investigation
• Use vivid names and glossy booklets
• Interesting story lines, names, and a memorable
  timeline
• A process by which the scenarios can be used by
  the organization to decide what to do next

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Why Invest Time In Scenarios?

• Scenario planning can help overcome the tendency
  to interpret new information in terms of old
  beliefs
• Scenario-based planning allows managers to
  deliberately try to break the rules of their
  business
• Scenarios are a way of practicing under a variety
  of circumstances with minimal risk

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Why Invest Time In Scenarios?

• Decisions are rooted in mental models, but our
  mental modes are not always good.
• Scenarios can help by legitimizing a dialogue,
  challenging convention wisdom, initiating
  wide-spread discussion, and creating the
  possibility of genuine transformation.
• Managers must make lots of decisions, and some
  are tougher than others.

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Why Invest Time In Scenarios?

• Business success often depends upon sensing what
  is coming in the future earlier than the
  competition. Scenarios increase this capability.
• Scenarios allow management to get beyond the
  question of "What future is most probable?" to
  more powerful questions like "What future do we
  fear the most?" and "What future do we want to
  create?"

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Key Management Benefits

• Anticipation and leveraging of change
• A more alert and competitive organization
• Stimulation of various mental modes
  introduction to multi-future thinking
• Reduction of future risk
• Developing a consistent framework
• The development of strategy and the translation
  into action
• A wider and more realistic shared basis for
  decision making

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Problems and Pitfalls

• Lack of decision focus
• Lack of decision makers involvement and
  commitment
• Scenarios become the product of the exercise
• Scenarios are not planning friendly
• Scenarios are difficult to use

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Problems and Pitfalls

• Wishful thinking and denial
• Lack of intuition on the part of the facilitators
  
• Ignoring basic driving forces and feedback loops
• Management feels best when decisions are
  data-based
• Decisions are rooted in mental models
• Problems can arise when members of the senior
  team are not able to share their mental models

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How Can You Make Them Work?

• Somehow reaching the part of the managers minds
  that harbor their perceptions good scenarios can
  help change mental models.
• Develop a receptive culture
• Target the opportunity
• Develop a strong communications program

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How Can You Make Them Work?

• Create explicit links to the rest of the
  strategic management process
• Fit the scenario to the task
• The scenarios must be internally consistent
• Once you have the scenarios, ask yourself what
  the scenarios really mean for the company

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How Can You Make Them Work?

• The scenario must resonate in some way with what
  the managers already know, giving them the
  ability to re-perceive the world.
• Make sure that observations from the real world
  are built into the process
• Make sure that everyone can recognize the truth
  in a scenario

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Success Stories

• Telephone Industry
• Investment Decisions

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Do Scenarios Have the Power to Change the World?

• The South African Success Story

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Canadian Scenarios

• Starship
• Titanic
• HMS Bounty
• Windjammer

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Precautions

• Scenarios are complementary management tools
• Scenario planning is not a substitute to
  traditional or classical approaches to change
  management
• The emphasis for planners must move from
  forecasting to foresight
• Many types of scenario facilitation are very
  expensive

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Scenarios Connection to KM

• Future scenarios are stories aimed at helping
  people break past their mental blocks and
  consider unthinkable futures. That is also what a
  comprehensive knowledge management system will do
  for you.
• We each design our own future behaviour, and the
  behaviour of our organizations in ways that we
  are not fully aware of. That is why it is so
  important not just to recognize our mental models
  but to actively try to change them. -- A. Kleiner

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Top Scenario Players

• Battelles Basics
• Computer-Driven Simulations
• The European Commission
• Northeast Consulting Resources, Inc.
• NCRI
• Schriefer Management

• The French School
• The Futures Group
• Global Business Network
• The Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies
• SRI
• Centre for Generative Leadership

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Commentary

• Ultimately the power of scenario planning is
  that it can prepare us help us to understand the
  uncertainties that lie before us, and what they
  mean help us to rehearse our responses to those
  possible futures and help us to spot them as
  they begin to unfold.

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Acknowledgements

• Peter Schwartz
• Peter Feltham
• Howard Rheingold
• Art Kleiner
• David Mason
• Norman E. Duncan
• Lucia L. Quinn
• Gill Ringland

• Audrey Schriefer
• Lawrence Wilkinson
• Kees van der Heijden
• Adam Kahane
• Pierre Wack
• Herman Kahn
• Steven Rosell