Seminar report: Picture this: foresight and scenario planning in practice

Seminar report on foresight and scenario planning from a hothouse seminar on 23 July 2007 - organised by the Performance Hub and Third Sector Foresight

Introduction

This is a report of the final seminar in the series of 'Hothouse' strategy seminars organised jointly by the Performance Hub (now known as Improving Support) and Third Sector Foresight. The seminar was held on 23 January 2007 and aimed to explore the challenges and benefits of scenario planning and other future visioning exercises in practice for voluntary and community organisations (VCOs).

The seminar featured a presentation by Andrew Curry, Director of Henley Centre Headlight Vision (now known as the futures company) which outlined some of the challenges and benefits of scenario planning and future visioning exercises in practice.

This was followed by a plenary discussion, facilitated by Caroline Copeman of the Centre for Charity Effectiveness, Cass Business School, which focused on unpicking the challenges and benefits of scenario planning through sharing each other's experiences.

Thirty-five senior managers, chief executives and development workers participated in the seminar.

Download the full report (PDF 104KB)

Introduction to scenarios
Benefits of scenario planning
Meeting the challenges of futures work
Helping people think creatively about the future
Communicating the insights gained from scenarios and integrating futures work into your planning
Tips for successful scenario planning and futures work
Further reading

Introduction to scenarios

The information in this report is based on discussions that took place during the seminar and a presentation from Andrew Curry, Director, Henley Centre Headlight Vision. The presentation provided a brief overview of the challenges and benefits involved in scenario planning and future visioning exercises based on the Henley Centre's extensive experience in this area of work.

What are scenarios?

Scenarios are visions of alternative plausible futures.
They can help organisations to think creatively about future opportunities and challenges.

Using scenarios can be incredibly powerful. They can be particularly useful for organisations that find their environment is changing rapidly and in unpredictable ways. They can help you to think creatively about the future rather than just about the here and now'. Scenarios offer a way of making the potential effects of external drivers feel real.

What are external drivers?

Drivers are major forces or trends that could positively or negatively shape the future of your organisation.

However, it is important to note that this is a process of anticipating possible futures, not predicting what the future will actually look like.

Want to know how to do scenario planning yourself?

To find out more about scenario planning please order a copy of Picture this: a guide to scenario planning for voluntary organisations.

What scenarios are - and are not

They are:	They are not:
Descriptions of alternative coherent and plausible futures	Predictions
Narratives of the evolving dynamics of the future	Variations around a midpoint/base case
Specific strategy-focused views of the future	Generalised views of feared or desired futures
The combination of tacit and explicit knowledge	The product of outside futurists or consultants

Source: SRI

Why try scenario planning?

If you have a number of high impact and unpredictable drivers to consider

(High impact - could have a big effect on your organisation, Unpredictable - could go one way or the other)

To stimulate creative activity across your organisation - focused on the future
To open up really big, new opportunities and ideas for improvement
To draw in new perspectives (from external and internal sources)
To proivde a strategic framework to help manage uncertainty and ambiguity

"The attraction of this is it forces you to think 10-15 years ahead." Aidan Timlin, Christian Aid

"Looking at the future should disturb the present" Gaston Berger, Futurist

When to use scenarios - and when not to

DO use them if:	DON'T use them if:
The short to medium term future is unstable/uncertain	The scenarios aren't designed to address a clear strategic question
You need to understand why something is happening (e.g. membership is falling)	You can't get a reasonable level of support or visibility within the organisation
You need to create a shared understanding of key issues and uncertainty	You can't ensure a reasonable level of involvement in the process (you'll end up with a future-proofed strategy which nobody gets')
You need to create a more outward looking open and customer focused culture
You need to have a strategic conversation with stakeholders, employees, and other key interests across organisational boundaries

Source: Henley Centre HeadlightVision

Doing good futures work

Get the focus question right - a clear entry question with direct relevance to your organisation e.g. "What will our funding look like in ten years' time?"
Allow multiple possible futures - remember futures work is not about predicting the future.
Open conversations and questions are essential
Understand what you can influence - and what you have to manage
It's not just about strategy - but about looking outside of the business to improve your effectiveness.
Full understanding takes time - be realistic in your planning.
Pick out the future uncertainties that are critical for the success of your organisation. Developing a stronger understanding of these uncertainties will tell you a lot about the capabilities your organisation will need in the future and therefore, the actions you can take now to get there.
Successful futures work is creative and uncertain.

"Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous." Jim Dator, futurist

The plenary discussion was centred on three key questions which participants explored in small groups. They then shared their thoughts on these issues and discussed any previous experience they had in future visioning.

3 Questions:

What are the challenges and benefits of scenario planning and future visioning exercises?
How do you engage key people within and outside of your organisation to think creatively about the future?
How do you communicate the insights gained from scenarios and integrate these into your future planning?

Benefits of scenario planning

There can be great organisational learning through achieving a shared vision.
It can be an engaging process.
It can be liberating as it helps people to understand there's not one single answer to the challenges they face, and helps them think more actively about things to do differently in the future.

"The benefits of scenario planning are that you enjoy the shift as opposed to bemoan the fate." Gary Wiltshire, Consultant

It allows people to adopt a more creative and open approach about their day-to-day work. They can start to think outside the box.

"It dispels fear which can restrict creativity and make people feel more confident." Fiona Dawe, Youthnet

It can provide people with the intellectual stimulation that they may crave in their every day role.
Involving external stakeholders can help widen engagement, build relationships and gather perspectives that aren't usually heard in the traditional planning process.
Looking beyond your operating environment to wider stakeholders can allow you to establish a better bond with the outside world and situate yourself better in your context. The process of scenario planning and others futures work can help breakdown untested assumptions your organisation has about the wider world.
It can help you to feel liberated from your operational plans and performance indicators and can be powerful in helping you reconnect with your organisation's vision, mission and aspirations.

"It gives energy, hope and happiness, life can be a struggle for organisations; it is useful to have something to actualise." Tesse Akpeki, Consultant

New intelligence; futures work can build new knowledge for your organisation.

"Because you are starting from the future/ a different place already - new things emerge." Megan Griffith , Third Sector Foresight, NCVO

It can highlight the skills and competencies that your organisation may be lacking and that you need to develop for in the future.
Funders will look favourably upon the fact that you are looking ahead, planning and facing the future.
It allows you to engage everybody so everybody's voice gets heard.

Meeting the challenges of futures work

It is not an easy process; it takes a lot of time and investment to simply get people in the room in the first place.
A lack of understanding about what futures work is, how to do it and what effect it can have on your organisation can lead to fear and uncertainty about the process which can restrict creativity.

"When we did this, we were terrified. We were walking in a small circle of light but all around us, we didn't know what was in the corners. It was scary for a while but after a bit, all we could see were opportunities. It's very inspiring." Leila Ferguson, West Berkshire Mencap

It can be a bit like Pandora's box, you don't know what is going to come out of it which means you need to plan ahead for how your organisation is going to manage that.
Futures work can be a technical process with a lot of jargon which may be overwhelming at first. It is essential that everyone understands the process. While no one need learn all the jargon, it can be helpful to recognise that there is a language to futures work which can shape and order what you do.
Accept that there will be people who are cynical about imaginative and creative futures work. Cynics can be useful in helping you shape your discussions and pitch; they may be the people who feel disenfranchised in the organisation, who haven't heard well, or are raising legitimate and important fears.

"The future may well look quite grim but at least it's been beneficial in terms of getting you or others out of denial. This enables you to do something about it." Karl Wilding , Head of Research, NCVO

Some people find it more difficult to think creatively so you need a good mix of styles and experiences in the room. For instance the clarity of perspective of the service user is vital, but users on their own may find it challenging to think about the future in a way that is divorced from their current experience.
There are many different ways you do this: Spend some time thinking about representative organisations; their strategic responses and how they might fare in each scenario. You can also think about the scenarios from the perspectives of different stakeholders.
Time scales can also be a challenge as it can be difficult to get people to shift from thinking about firefighting and the 'here and now,' to thinking strategically; this can be cultural change as well.
Sometimes people get diverted with the interesting stuff which is not necessarily relevant so keeping focused can be a challenge.
Staff might find the process interesting but don't quite see the relevance of how to use the scenarios, especially getting from the long term (scenarios) to what we do now' (strategy and action planning).
The end product and the scenarios that emerge from the process often have low credibility. It is important to give thought to how you want to use and communicate your visions of the future e.g. using posters, computer animations, stories in pamphlets.
It can be hard to emancipate yourself from the original vision for your organisation, which may be the funder's rather than your own.

Watch out! Common pitfalls to futures work include:

Decisions made too early in the process - without giving the creative stage enough room.
The context of the decision is too narrow.
Insufficient engagement by employees in the decisions which are made.
The organisation misjudges or prejudges how stakeholders will respond.

Helping people think creatively about the future

Do your homework

It is important to prepare well for the futures work itself, but also consider how your organisation will approach futures work or scenario planning to get the most out of it as a process.

Get the right mix of knowledge and experience in the room; don't be afraid to populate the exercise with the expertise you need.
Use existing processes and meetings to start the process off before you introduce new techniques and events.
Do warm up exercises before jumping into scenarios or future visioning; show participants that it is fine to have different and conflicting views about the future, and give them an opportunity to practice new ways of thought. Constructing a past narrative of how your organisation has got to where you are can be one way of getting discussion going.
Get the most out of any third party facilitators or consultants you use. They should help build your internal capacity and skills - they can train staff and stakeholders in facilitation as well as doing the work themselves.

Get a quick win

If you're having problems getting engagement because people don't understand the future uncertainty or the value of the process you're using, start on something smaller to get people involved.
There are a number of techniques which can be used in half day sessions to build on a trends review. These include:
- futures wheels
- qualitative cross-impact analysis
- 'double SWOT' or TOWS
- knowing what you don't know: considering and analysing your organisation's knowledge gaps.
Don't worry about getting everybody on board right at the start of the process.

"If you can get the key people enthused, then the cynics with their arms crossed will be pulled along." Leila Ferguson, West Berkshire Mencap

Build credibility

Start with a good question. Making sure your focus question is precise will make it easier to produce a strategy from your imagined futures.
Make sure the benefits are understood across the organisation before you start, a month of preparation beforehand is worth six months of explanation afterwards.
Make sure the process is inclusive.
Get the people who will use the work to jointly produce the scenarios and strategy with you; this will also help divide the workload involved.

Ensure transparency

Using a workshop format can help a group of diverse stakeholders build shared knowledge. Any structural or procedural change that follows the futures work can be made easier as an open process can help get involvement and commitment to a plan.
Workshops are also often the best way to get the stakeholders to play a part in producing the futures work, rather than just being an audience for it. They can help transfer skills and promote engagement in the organisation's vision and mission.

To be successful, workshops have to be part of an open process. The basic principles of dialogue are:

equality and the absence of forceful influences
listening with empathy; and
bringing assumptions into the open

"We got alignment through involving people, which meant that the structural stuff that had to follow was made easier through a shared common long term goal." Fiona Dawe, Youthnet

Communicating the insights gained from scenario planning and integrating futures work into your planning

Strategy Graph

Source: Henley Centre HeadlightVision

What sort of stories help to communicate?

They have some of the following characteristics:

They are open
- Easy to understand to let the reader enter them
- They have open endings
They are plausible and have positives and negatives
They are narratives:
- There is a self-contained story
- They capture the everyday
- There provide a backstory' (from here to there)
- They are connected to the present
- They include some evidence - some parts of the future may be already occurring today
They contain conflict. Stories are built on conflict - and so is futures work
They leave the central choices open for the reader
- The character is revealed under pressure
They use metaphors, pictures, poetry, drama; whatever will engage people within an organisation and stimulate creativity in colleagues, partners and users.

Taking action - incorporating insights into future strategies and plans

It is best to analyse the stories or narratives to seek out any patterns or insights about the future that they might share. Very often the analysis reveals strategies and tactics that need to be adopted whatever the likely future scenario.
Make sure each insight leads to some action, even if it's only a note to keep your eye on a trend.
Don't let anyone get carried away by any scenario - avoid developing plans for every scenario and possible future. Scenarios and futures work should lead to better planning, not more planning.
It is the insights you get from looking across the range of different scenarios that will prove of value and need to be considered for the long term.
Make sure you keep the workshop participants and other stakeholders up to date with the action you've taken - this will keep them motivated for next time.
Consider the understandings that emerge around skills, knowledge and relationships and make sure you develop an organisational learning agenda to take them into account.

Tips for successful scenario planning and futures work

Prepare well.
Try to pitch at the right level; use language that is familiar and meaningful to people otherwise you risk alienating them - this will vary for different people. Be self-aware and reflect on your process
Make it fun and challenging; push yourself and your organisation out of your comfort zone!
Don't overcomplicate. Use the skills you have already within an organisation, managers shouldn't always feel they have to lead and while good facilitation is vital, it doesn't necessarily have to come from a third party.
Think about the different dimensions of the drivers - this can be done through chart. For example think about different types of organisations or different functions within organisations - services, campaigning and governance.

"While the future is uncertain and much of it is beyond our control, we can control many aspects of it. We choose our future: we create it by what we do or fail to do." Wendy Schultz, 'Defining Futures Fluency'