Tag: scenarios

Scenarios for the Australian Energy Sector: Futures of Heat, Light, and Power

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The scenarios I created for Energy Consumers Australia’s 2020 Foresighting Forum, Futures of Heat, Light, and Power – are now publicly available.

In four visions of Australia in 2050, we presented future contexts that challenge current assumptions about how the energy sector works and where it’s headed, with a focus on the experience of the Australian consumer.

In each scenario, we join Josie and her daughter Hannah at their breakfast table, to explore how they live their lives – and how Josie’s role as an energy worker changes – from one future to the next.

You can download the full scenario report (PDF) via the Energy Consumers Australia site, or watch a series of videos based on the scenarios as a YouTube playlist.

Imperial College London’s Dr. Jeff Hardy led a panel discussion unpacking the implications of the scenarios at the Forum, which you can also see on YouTube.

At a critical moment in Australia’s energy future, these scenarios help us to think differently about the world which might await us thirty years from now, and explore both the challenges and opportunities which may exist.

See more from the Energy Consumers Australia 2020 Foresighting Forum at their site.

Webinar: Intro to Scenario Planning for Information Professionals

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On 18th March, at 12.30pm Greenwich Mean Time, you can join me for a webinar organised by the UK’s Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals.

We’ll be talking about scenario planning and foresight techniques which participants can employ in their organisations:

How can we prepare for an uncertain future? What part does good foresight play in resilience, organisational effectiveness, and community cohesion? If we can’t gather evidence from events which haven’t happened yet, and we don’t have a crystal ball to foretell what comes next, how can we complement evidence-based practice with sound strategic judgement?

This lively participatory session will introduce you to scenario planning, a method which allows us to examine the future by exploring the contexts which would most challenge our current assumptions – then deciding how to act in the present, based on what we have discovered.

Participants will learn the fundamentals of scenario planning and experiment with practical foresight tasks which can be immediately used after the session, across teams and organisations both large and small.

Find out more and book your place at the event’s homepage.

Scenario Planning: Interview with Stefan Hajkowicz

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Stefan Hajkowicz is a principal scientist in strategic foresight at the Australian science organisation CSIRO, leading its Data61 foresight team. I interviewed Stefan for my recent piece on scenario planning in Australia’s magazine for civil servants, The Mandarin – and the full interview is included here.

Stefan Hajkowicz standing outdoors, facing the camera
Stefan Hajkowicz of Data61

I began by asking Stefan: What should readers know about Data 61?

We take data driven approaches to strategic foresight, using AI and machine intelligence to analyse data and turn it into stories that help you to make choices.

On an issue like climate change, for example, the science might be well and truly settled, but the social and cultural aspects of our response to the issue are still uncertain – and depending on these choices, we’ll come to inhabit very different futures. Scenarios help us to think through these outcomes.

Both reason and intuition have a part to play, and the best decisions combine both – though no model is 100% perfect. History is our dataset for the future. Although, to quote Mark Twain, history doesn’t repeat itself, it does rhyme. If we can gain the ability to look ahead twenty years, and bring the future forward to now, we can make better informed choices.

 

Read more →

IMAJINE: Scenario Planning for Europe’s Regional Future

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Since last year, I’ve been working as a foresight consultant on the IMAJINE project, a Horizon 2020 project exploring the future of regional equality and territorial cohesion across the European Union.

To help people understand how IMAJINE is using scenario planning to explore Europe’s future, Marie Mahon of NUI Galway and I have recorded a five-minute video introducing the scenario planning component of IMAJINE.

You can watch the video below or read more at the IMAJINE project website.

Scenarios of Heat, Light, and Power @ Energy Consumers Australia Foresighting Forum 2020

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This week sees the 2020 Foresighting Forum hosted by Energy Consumers Australia (ECA).

The event brings together stakeholders from across the Australian energy sector, plus international guests, to talk about what lies in store for Australians and their future relationship to energy.

As part of this year’s forum, I’ve worked with ECA to create four scenarios set in the year 2050. Each offers a radically different vision of the Australian relationship to heat, light, and power, intended to enrich current assumptions and strategies by indicating new opportunities and unexpected challenges which may await.

The event takes place on 19 and 20 February at the University of Technology Sydney, and I’ll be contributing video presentations for attendees – but you can also follow along on social media via the hashtag #TakeCharge20.

The scenario documents and materials will be released publically following the event on ECA’s website – stay tuned for more information.

Interview with Joshua Polchar, OECD

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As part of last month’s article on scenario planning for The Mandarin, I interviewed Joshua Polchar, a strategic foresight analyst and facilitator at the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).

OECD Conference Centre Paris – Photo by Wikipedia user Nick D – CC BY-SA 3.0

Scenario planning has been part of the OECD’s futures toolkit in the 1970s, but over the last decade, the organisation has started to enhance its capacity for strategic foresight.

Joshua began the conversation by explaining why – I’ll let him take it from here: Read more →

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.