Scenarios

An introduction to the use of scenarios

The Scenario method recognises the unpredictability of the future and develops alternative images of the future to aid decision making. They may also be used in a creative form depicting preferred futures and ways to achieve them.

Scenario Planning Overview [Word]

Requirements

1. A facilitator
2. A group or groups of six to ten participants.
3. Time, either two or three days or a series of half day sessions
4. A method of recording the proceedings

Process

The following provides a guide to one fairly general approach:

1. Decide on the system or area of concern your scenarios will be about.
2. Decide on your timeframe for the scenarios.
3. Decide how many scenarios you want.
4. Identify the driving forces.
5. Analyse the driving forces.
6. Create Prototype Scenarios
7. Create a working title for each scenario
8. Draft each scenario.
9. Apply Scenarios to Decisions

Examples

Shell have used scenarios to assist their planning since the 1970s. The Chatham House Forum produced two scenarios for the future of global development in 2020, Pushing the Edge and Renewed Foundations.

Advantages

• if the number of factors to be considered and the degree of uncertainty about the future is high the scenario method is superior to other methods
• stimulates strategic thought and communication;

Disadvantages

• not easy to draw up credible, intelligible and useful scenarios
• validity of assumptions incorporated can be questioned
• users may find it difficult to deal with multiple images of plausible futures
• may be mistaken for forecasts

References

Peter Schwartz The Art of the Long View, Century Business 1991

Gill Ringland Scenario Planning, Wiley 1997

Kees van der Heijden et al The Sixth Sense: Accelerating Organizational Learning with Scenarios, Wiley 2002

Links

How to build Scenarios
http://www.wired.com/wired/scenarios/build.html

GBN Scenarios
http://www.gbn.org/public/gbnstory/scenarios
Includes a select bibliography on scenarios