Tag: scenarios

Scenario Planning at The Mandarin: Prediction vs. Plausibility

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My December 2019 article in Australia’s publication for public sector leaders, The Mandarin, is available here on my site and can be republished freely.

Here’s the full text of “We Can’t Predict the Future, but Scenario Planning Can Identify What It Might Look Like“:

File:Parliament House Canberra NS.jpg
Australia’s Federal Parliament house, by Wikipedia user JJ Harrison – (CC BY-SA 3.0)

What would it mean to prepare for a future that you didn’t see coming?

Whether it’s the Brexit vote, Trump’s presidency, the global financial crisis, or the changing climate, we increasingly face what some foresight experts call “TUNA” conditions, characterised by turbulence, uncertainty, novelty, and ambiguity. In such circumstances, old models of the future lose predictive power, and our expectations are thwarted.

Scenario planning is a foresight methodology that seeks not to predict the future but to usefully challenge our assumptions about what’s coming next. The pioneering scenario planner Pierre Wack was among the figures who developed the approach in the mid-20th century and gave it credibility through successful strategic counsel at the oil firm Royal Dutch Shell. Read more →

2020 Foresighting Forum, Energy Consumers Australia

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I’ll be appearing via video at next month’s 2020 Foresighting Forum hosted by Energy Consumers Australia, the national voice for residential and small business energy consumers in Australia.

The Forum brings together stakeholders from across Australia’s energy sector to explore long-term questions of heat, light, and power.

I’ll be presenting a group of scenarios, created with representatives of the Australian energy sector in 2019, which could help reframe curent perspectives on Australia’s energy future and the strategic decisions which must be made in the present.

 

2019 GovLove Hit Parade: Leadership & Scenario Planning

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The US-based GovLove Podcast, run by the Engaging Local Government Leaders network (ELGL),  celebrates the end of each year by showcasing the most popular episodes of the previous 12 months.

I’m pleased to announce that July’s episode on Leadership & Scenario Planning, which I recorded with ELGL’s Kirsten Wyatt, has taken the number one slot.

Check out the whole list in this Twitter thread from the GovLove team.

 

The Mandarin: Scenario Planning for the Public Sector

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My latest article has just been published in The Mandarin, Australia’s publication for public sector leaders.

File:Parliament House Canberra NS.jpg
Australia’s Federal Parliament house, by Wikipedia user JJ Harrison – (CC BY-SA 3.0)

“We can’t predict the future, but scenario planning can identify what it might look like” explores the practice of scenario planning, including interviews with practitioners and clients from the OECD, Australia’s science organisation CSIRO, and leadership roles in government and policy bodies.

Visit the Mandarin website to read the article today.

Dots that I haven’t joined yet

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I’m momentarily at rest in my beloved Brisbane, with the sun blazing down in December and bushfires on the news and Leila Taylor’s book Darkly to read.

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Taylor’s book, subtitled Black History and America’s Gothic Soul, blends memoir and criticism to explore the places where African-American history, culture, and experience meet the Gothic – from The Castle of Otranto through Edgar Allan Poe to Marilyn Manson.

I’m back in Australia helping organisations to look at their future and imagine what might await them in years to come, using scenario planning. This is a method by which, instead of trying to predict what’s coming, we co-create plausible visions of the future which challenge our current assumptions. Successful scenarios are not judged by whether they come to pass, but whether they trouble, complicate, and enrich our thinking.

And the dots which I can’t quite join yet became visible when I read this, in Darkly: “Gothic narratives were (and still are) a means of working through the discomfort of a changing world through the safety of fiction.”

Which is so close to what scenarios do as to blur the edges of the two concepts. In scenario planning we talk about avoiding the “brutal audit” of a crisis by rehearsing for the things you can’t, or don’t want to, see coming through your current framing of the world.

Read more →

IMAJINE pilot workshops: the future of spatial justice

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Our IMAJINE team working on scenario planning for the future of regional inequality and territorial cohesion in the European Union has held its first pilot workshops on the West Coast of Ireland.

Researchers and regional officials joined NUI Galway’s Marie Mahon and myself at the Teagasc Rural Economy Research Centre in Athenry. There, we trialled fast, practical foresight tools allowing participants to sketch roadmaps of the futures which may await them.

The Oxford Scenario Planning Approach, which we’re using to structure these sessions, allows us to identify and develop plausible scenarios which serve to test assumptions and reframe the way participants look at the future. By imagining the most difficult or surprising circumstances a community might face, we seek to develop a playbook of strategies for emergent issues in territorial inequality and spatial justice.

The IMAJINE project continues through 2021 and incorporates Europe-wide foresight alongside deeply local engagement with policymakers and other stakeholders. Stay tuned for more updates.

The Digitalisation of Education: Foresight Work at the University of Oslo

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On 28 October, the University of Oslo Media & Communications Department brought together researchers, educators, publishers, and representatives of the tech sector & not-for-profits to begin the work of building scenarios that test assumptions about the future of education in Norway.

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I facilitated an iterative process generating three visions of Norwegian society in years to come, exploring social, technological, cultural and economic change – always seeking to capture factors and possibilities which lay beyond the current framing of Norway’s educational future.

This workshop was only the beginning of an ambitious future-facing research programme at the Media & Communications Department, but I hope to be able to share materials with you in due course.

IMAJINE: The Future of Spatial Justice

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I’m pleased to announce I’ll be joining the EU-funded IMAJINE project on spatial injustice and territorial inequality.

Part of Horizon 2020, the biggest EU research and innovation programme ever, I’ll be working with a team of international researchers to design and deliver a participatory scenario-building process across 2019 and 2020.

We’ll be helping interested parties from across Europe to develop and present a set of future scenarios which will challenge today’s assumptions. Our work will complement IMAJINE’s substantial portfolio of empirical research into the geographical inequalities which exist within Europe, building capacity for foresight and strategic action.

Wide-angle lens shot of the Atomium from near its base
Atomium in Brussels, by Wikipedia user Mcsdwarken – CC BY-SA 3.0

“Get Time On Your Side” – Information Professional

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There’s a discussion with me in the latest edition of Information Professional, the magazine of the British library & information association CILIP.

Journalist Rob Mackinlay and I talk about foresight, strategy, scenario planning, and creating alternate forms of value beyond the merely financial.

Image of title from Matt Finch Information Professional interview "Get Time On Your Side"

Check out the full interview here as a PDF download or head over to the Information Professional website.

#NotEnoughSciFi: Writing Futures with Jasper Fforde at the Brisbane Writers Festival

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The British novelist Jasper Fforde joined attendees of the Brisbane Writers Festival in Queensland, Australia to explore the creation of plausible, intriguing imaginary worlds in a half-day workshop.

Fforde is known for eclectic genre-bending novels including the Thursday Next series, which follow the exploits of a woman who is able to cross the boundary between literature and her reality.

I was interested to see if Fforde’s work could be useful for strategists and foresight professionals trying to craft evocative visions of the futures we might inhabit. Although his stories tend to be set in wild and comic universes, his workshop had more than a few nuggets of wisdom for people trying to imagine futures they could strategically act on.

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