Differences

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--- future_fabulators:scenario_planning [2014-02-11 07:35] – maja
+++ future_fabulators:scenario_planning [2014-02-19 06:37] – maja
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ==== Scenario Planning ====
-This page is a collection of quotes and references on which we build to develop [[scenarios]] with Future Fabulators.
+This page is a collection of quotes and references on which we build to develop [[scenarios]] with Future Fabulators. If you are interested in how to build scenarios, look at [[scenario methods]].
-===Scenario planning & scenario thinking===
+<blockquote>Thinking through [scenario] stories, and talking in depth about their implications, brings each person’s unspoken assumptions about the future to the surface. Scenarios are thus the most powerful vehicles I know for challenging our ‘mental models’ about the world and lifting the ‘blinders’ that limit our creativity and resourcefulness.”</blockquote>
+Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World
+<blockquote>... scenario writing (...) is fundamentally an act of evidence-based imagination" -Geoffrey Coyle </blockquote>
+====Scenario planning & scenario thinking====
 <blockquote>
 Scenarios are not predictions. Rather, they are provocative and plausible accounts of how relevant external forces — such as the future political environment, scientific and technological developments, social dynamics, and economic conditions — might interact and evolve, providing our organizations with different challenges and opportunities.
@@ Line 9: / Line 14: @@
 in "Why Scenarios?" http://www.gbn.com/about/scenario_planning.php
-=== Scenario Planning is Not Forecasting ===
+==== Scenario Planning is Not Forecasting ====
 <blockquote>Scenario planning is not, or rather should not be, about forecasting the future. Instead, it is a tool for collective learning; what matters is what the scenario team learns in creating it.  As an exercise, it is useful; as a strategic map for outsiders, it is relatively useless.  Therefore, instead of using it as a map for your organization, ignore its conclusion, ignore the scenarios themselves, and think about the trends, forces and events that the NIC identifies, and then add your own, based on your intuition and expertise.
@@ Line 23: / Line 28: @@
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/silberzahnjones/2013/01/17/lady-gaga-world-president-by-2030-why-the-forecasters-so-often-get-it-wrong/
+==== What is the purpose of scenarios? ====
-=== How to Build Scenarios ===
+<blockquote>Herman Kahn defined scenarios as narrative descriptions of the future that focus attention on causal processes and decision points. (Kahn 1967) No scenario is ever probable; the probability of any scenario ever being realized is minute. Scenarios should be judged by their ability to help decisionmakers make policy now, rather than whether they turn out to be right or wrong. “Good” scenarios are those that are: 1) Plausible (a rational route from here to there that make causal processes and decisions explicit); 2) Internally consistent (alternative scenarios should address similar issues so that they can be compared; and 3) Sufficiently interesting and exciting to make the future “real” enough to affect decision making.
+(...)
+The purpose of scenarios is to systematically explore, create, and test both possible and desirable future conditions. Scenarios can help generate long-term policies, strategies, and plans, which help bring desired and likely future circumstances in closer alignment. They can also expose ignorance; show that we do not know how to get to a specific future or that it is impossible.
+Exploratory or descriptive scenarios describe events and trends as they could evolve based on alternative assumptions on how these events and trends may influence the future. Normative scenarios describe how a desirable future can emerge from the present.
+(...)
+In general, the term scenario has been used in two different ways: first, to describe a snapshot in time or the conditions of important variables at some particular time in the future; second, to describe a future history—that is, the evolution from present conditions to one of several futures.
+(...)
+The latter approach is generally preferred because it can lay out the causal chain of decisions and circumstances that lead from the present. The most useful scenarios are those that display the conditions of important variables over time.
+(...)
+The goal of generating scenarios is to understand the mix of strategic decisions that are of maximum benefit in the face of various uncertainties and challenges posed by the external environment. Scenario building, in conjunction with a careful analysis of the driving forces, fosters systematic study of potential future possibilities—both good and bad.
+</blockquote>
+From [[http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/FRM-V3.html|Futures Research Methodology]]
+==== Scenarios and decisions ====
 <blockquote>Scenario planning derives from the observation that, given the impossibility of knowing precisely how the future will play out, a good decision or strategy to adopt is one that plays out well across several possible futures. To find that "robust" strategy, scenarios are created in plural, such that each scenario diverges markedly from the others. These sets of scenarios are, essentially, specially constructed stories about the future, each one modeling a distinct, plausible world in which we might someday have to live and work.
@@ Line 32: / Line 62: @@
 From [[http://www.wired.com/wired/scenarios/build.html|How to Build Scenarios]] by Lawrence Wilkinson
-=== Open source scenarios ===
+==== Open source scenarios ====
 <blockquote>
 Imagine a database of thousands of items all related to understanding how the future could turn out. This database would include narrow concerns and large-scale driving forces alike, would have links to relevant external materials, and would have space for the discussion of and elaboration on the entries. The items in the database would link to scenario documents showing how various forces and changes could combine to produce different possible outcomes. Best of all, the entire construction would be open access, free for the use.
@@ Line 42: / Line 73: @@
 and http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//004246.html
-=== Open foresight ===
+==== Open foresight ====
 "What is Open Foresight? We recently introduced the concept of ‘Open Foresight’ as a process we’re developing to analyze complex issues in an open and collaborative way, and to raise the bar on public discourse and forward-focused critical thinking [...] In simple terms, open foresight is a process for building visions of the future together."
@@ Line 49: / Line 80: @@
   * http://emergentbydesign.com/2012/10/29/open-foresight-model-public-futurism/
-=== Scenarios & dialogue ===
+==== Scenarios & dialogue ====
 <blockquote>The ideal approach to the future combines free speculation and data-driven deduction. Scenarios are an ideal tool for strategic dialogue -- Karl Schroeder</blockquote>
-=== What next for scenario planning? ===
+==== What next for scenario planning? ====
 <blockquote>Recently I have been interviewing a variety of high profile futurists and  up-and-coming strategists on how online approaches are transforming scenario planning and futures work.</blockquote>
 http://news.noahraford.com/?p=313
+==== Crowdsourced Futures ====
+"Next generation futures systems will therefore have to address the synthesis and interpretation of results in a way that is more substantial and useful than most crowdsourcing solutions today. At the same time, they will also need to engage the social dynamics of participation more directly; why people contribute, what they get out of it, and how it factors into the final product (which will most likely be for a very different, paying, audience)."
+http://noahraford.com/?p=1603
+==== Scenarios and permaculture ====
 <blockquote>FutureScenarios.org presents an integrated approach to understanding the potential interaction between Climate Change and Peak Oil using a scenario planning model. In the process I introduce permaculture as a design system specifically evolved over the last 30 years to creatively respond to futures that involve progressively less and less available energy. </blockquote>
   * David Holmgren's website on [[http://www.futurescenarios.org/|Future Scenarios]], where he mixes scenario planning and permaculture design methods.
-=== Scenarios ===
+==== Scenarios ====
   * They're provocative -- they push the readers to think about possibilities they'd often rather not face. While this often means confronting unpleasant outcomes, it can also mean admitting the possibility of success, what it would take to get there, and what one would do if it happened.
@@ Line 71: / Line 110: @@
 http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000433.html
+==== Strengths and weaknesses of scenarios ====
-=== Reference ===
+<blockquote>A strength of scenario is to help develop plans that are viable over the wide range of possible futures—with both plans and a process that manage uncertainty. Scenario-based planning meets this strategic challenge. (…) Instead of each possibility being a potential threat to a rigid plan, they tend to be evaluated as sign posts, indicating paths along the way to alternative and anticipated futures.
-  * Scenario planning resources. a well organised collection of texts, studies and references. http://www.well.com/~mb/scenario_planning/
-  * Slideshow on building scenarios by futuresavvy.com: http://www.slideshare.net/adgo/scenario-building-workshop-how-to-build-and-use-scenarios
-  * [[taleb's rules]]
-  * "The Art of the Long View" by Peter Schwartz
-  * http://www.driversofchange.com/
-{{ :resilients:scenario-process-diagram.png?1000 |Visual translation of "Steps to developing scenarios" by P. Schwartz}}
-Diagram prepared with [[http://vue.tufts.edu | VUE]]
+A weakness of scenarios is that they can be given to non-participants, who can then see the scenarios as the “official set of possible futures” and hence, control or limit their thinking to some degree. They have great ability to influence the reader in subtle ways due to the writer’s assumptions about cause and effect. The writer’s mental model of how the world works is transferred to the reader, and possibly unconsciously accepted. </blockquote>
+From: [[http://www.cgee.org.br%2Fatividades%2FredirKori%2F3310&ei=R9n9UqixEIrmkAXymIDoBA&usg=AFQjCNGaA2QdNlSF3_6roa_YCSR0ez29SA&sig2=GEyGJ_CH5qo-INVR4kz0XQ&bvm=bv.61190604,d.dGI|Futures Research Methodology: Scenarios]]
-----
+==== Steps to developing scenarios ====
-Related reference pages: [[:/forecasting]], [[non_predictive_strategy]]
+{{ :resilients:scenario-process-diagram.png?1000 |Visual translation of "Steps to developing scenarios" by P. Schwartz}}
-Notes and [[confabulation]]
-Related project: [[:resilients/future_preparedness]]
+Diagram prepared with [[http://vue.tufts.edu | VUE]]
+==== References and further reading ====
+  * Scenario planning resources. a well organised collection of texts, studies and references. http://www.well.com/~mb/scenario_planning/
+  * Slideshow on building scenarios by futuresavvy.com: http://www.slideshare.net/adgo/scenario-building-workshop-how-to-build-and-use-scenarios
+  * [[taleb's rules]]
+  * "The Art of the Long View" by Peter Schwartz
+  * http://www.driversofchange.com/
+  * Related reference pages: [[scenario_methods]], [[:/forecasting]], [[non_predictive_strategy]]
+  * Notes and [[confabulation]]
+  * Related project: [[:resilients/future_preparedness]]
+  * More unstructured [[references]]