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The Futures Toolkit

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The Futures Toolkit The Futures Toolkit Tools for Futures Thinking and Foresight Across UK Government Edition 1.0 November 2017 Contents 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 2. Introduction to futures thinking .............................................................................................. 2 3. Futures process design ........................................................................................................... 6 4. Using the toolkit ....................................................................................................................... 8 5. Pathways designed to meet specific business needs ........................................................ 15 Pathway 1: Exploring underlying issues or causes when scoping or defining a policy area ... 16 Pathway 2: Determining a vision for a new policy area ........................................................... 17 Pathway 3: Testing policy options for an existing policy area under time constraints ............ 18 Pathway 4: Testing policy options for a policy area ................................................................. 19 Pathway 5: Exploring and communicating the complexity of a situation ................................ 20 Pathway 6: Identifying futures research and evidence priorities ............................................. 22 Pathway 7: Identifying and prioritising future opportunities and threats for action ................. 24 6. Tools for gathering intelligence about the future ................................................................ 26 Horizon Scanning ..................................................................................................................... 27 7 Questions .............................................................................................................................. 29 The Issues Paper ..................................................................................................................... 33 Delphi ....................................................................................................................................... 35 7. Tools for exploring the dynamics of change ....................................................................... 41 Driver Mapping ........................................................................................................................ 42 Axes of Uncertainty .................................................................................................................. 46 8. Tools for describing what the future might be like ............................................................. 50 Scenarios ................................................................................................................................. 51 Visioning ................................................................................................................................... 57 SWOT Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 61 9. Tools for developing and testing policy and strategy ......................................................... 63 Policy Stress-testing ................................................................................................................ 64 Backcasting ............................................................................................................................. 68 Roadmapping .......................................................................................................................... 73 10. Evaluating the impact of using a particular tool ................................................................. 77 The Futures Toolkit Annex 1: Sample futures and foresight material ................................................................. 78 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 78 Two horizon scanning formats ................................................................................................. 79 An example of a 7 Questions interview ................................................................................... 81 An extract from an issues paper .............................................................................................. 83 Sample drivers map ................................................................................................................. 85 Sample slides for introducing scenarios .................................................................................. 86 A sample scenario (one from a group of four) ......................................................................... 88 A vision..................................................................................................................................... 90 A SWOT Analysis ..................................................................................................................... 91 Annex 2: Glossary of futures and foresight terms .............................................................. 92 Annex 3: Frequently Asked Questions ................................................................................. 94 Annex 4: Introducing metrics into scenario thinking .......................................................... 99 Annex 5: Case Studies ......................................................................................................... 101 Defence Science and Technology Laboratory ....................................................................... 102 Environment Agency .............................................................................................................. 103 Forestry Commission England ............................................................................................... 104 Health and Safety Executive .................................................................................................. 105 Health Education England ..................................................................................................... 106 HMRC .................................................................................................................................... 107 Natural England ..................................................................................................................... 108 Annex 6: Wider set of futures tools .................................................................................... 109 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 109 Causal Layered Analysis ........................................................................................................ 109 Dialogue ................................................................................................................................. 110 Futures Wheel ........................................................................................................................ 110 Gaming................................................................................................................................... 111 Morphological Analysis .......................................................................................................... 111 Annex 7: Further reading ..................................................................................................... 112 The Futures Toolkit was assembled for GO-Science by Waverley Consultants. Contact [email protected] www.waverley.cloud The Futures Toolkit 1. Introduction The Government Office for Science (GO-Science) ensures that government policies and decisions are informed by the best scientific evidence and strategic long term thinking. The Futures Toolkit is a key resource that policy professionals can use to embed long term strategic thinking in the policy and strategy process. The Toolkit is designed primarily as a resource for those who are new to futures thinking but should also prove useful to more experienced practitioners. It provides an introduction to futures thinking and examines some of the important design questions that policy makers need to consider when introducing it into the policy process. The tools are organised according to their primary purpose – gathering intelligence about the future, exploring the dynamics of change, describing what the future might be like and developing and testing policy and strategy – and each procedure is set out in detail. The annexes provide examples of the outputs that different tools generate. The tools are adaptable and can be customised to meet the needs of most futures projects. To illustrate this, the Toolkit sets out a number of pathways that show various ways the tools can be combined to meet specific business needs. The Toolkit is practical rather than theoretical and each tool and pathway describes the design and facilitation steps required to deliver the technique. It is based on GO-Science’s1 own experience of running futures work and has been developed in collaboration with other government departments and futures practitioners who use these tools regularly in a wide range of settings. There are ten chapters: • Chapter 1 introduces the Toolkit • Chapter 2 provides an introduction to futures thinking • Chapter 3 sets out key principles that underpin futures process
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