Future Scenarios The Art of Storytelling Definitions Scenariobased

Future Scenarios: The Art of Storytelling

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

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

Early Uses Military Think Tanks To Influence Public Attitudes

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. ”

Two Schools of Thought Risk-Reduction School Revolutionary School

Forms of Strategic Modeling • Trend-impact analysis • Cross-impact analysis • Decision scenarios

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.

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

The Process of Creating • Identify the focal issue or decision • Identify the driving forces • Predetermined elements • Critical uncertainties • Writing the scenarios

The Process of Creating • Interviews • Feedback • Workshops

How Many Scenarios? • It all depends on the company you choose to use, but 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.

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

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

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.

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? "

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

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

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

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

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

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

Success Stories Telephone Industry Investment Decisions

Do Scenarios Have the Power to Change the World? The South African Success Story

Canadian Scenarios • Starship • Titanic • HMS Bounty • Windjammer

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

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

Top Scenario Players • Battelle’s 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

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.

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