University Strategic Planning and the Foresight/Futures Approach an Irish Case Study
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Considering Multiple Futures: Scenario Planning to Address
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Considering Multiple Futures: Scenario Planning To Address Uncertainty in Natural Resource Conservation Cover photo: Moose in mist at Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge in Maine. Credit: Sharon Wallace This publication has met scientific peer review standards and been approved for publication in accordance with U.S. Geological Survey Fundamental Science Practices. Authors: Erika L. Rowland1, Molly S. Cross1, Holly Hartmann2 *Author for correspondence ([email protected]) 1 Wildlife Conservation Society, Bozeman, MT 2 University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Guide Development Team: Kurt Johnson (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), Donna Brewer (USFWS), Michelle Haynes (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), Richard Sojda (U.S. Geological Survey), Kathryn Irvine (USGS) Rowland, E.R., Cross, M.S., Hartmann, H. (2014) Considering Multiple Futures: Scenario Planning To Address Uncertainty in Natural Resource Conservation. Washington, DC: US Fish and Wildlife Service. Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..............................................................vii SECTION 1 SCENARIO PLANNING AND ITS APPLICATION .............................1 1.1 WHAT IS SCENARIO PLANNING AND WHY IS IT HELPFUL? . 2 Importance of incorporating uncertainty into natural resource management................3 Scenario planning as a tool for dealing with uncertainty..................................4 1.2 WHEN SHOULD SCENARIO PLANNING BE USED? . 9 Levels of uncertainties, -
The Use of Scenario Analysis in Disclosure of Climate-Related Risks and Opportunities
Technical Supplement The Use of Scenario Analysis in Disclosure of Climate-Related Risks and Opportunities June 2017 Recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure i Contents A Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 1 B Scenario Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Why is Scenario Analysis Useful? ................................................................................................................................ 2 2. What Is a Scenario? ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 3. How are Organizations Using Climate-Related Scenario Analysis? ........................................................................ 3 C Developing and Applying Scenario Analysis ............................................................................................... 4 1. Considerations for Building Climate Change into Scenario Analysis ..................................................................... 5 2. Analytical Choices in Scenario Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 8 3. Tools and Data ........................................................................................................................................................... -
Causal Layered Analysis — Deepening the Future
Causal Layered Analysis — Deepening the future Sohail Inayatullah This article is from Sohail Inayatullah, Questioning the Future: methods and tools for organizational and societal transformation. Tamsui, Tamkang University Press, 2005/7. While macrohistory structures the study of the future through time, in this article, the future is deepened through causal layered analysis (CLA). Causal layered analysis is concerned less with predicting a particular future and more with opening up the present and past to create alternative futures. It focuses less on the horizontal spatiality of futures—in contrast to techniques such as emerging issues analysis, scenarios, and backcasting—and more on the vertical dimension of futures studies, of layers of analysis. Causal layered analysis opens up space for the articulation of constitutive discourses, which can then be shaped as scenarios. In essence, CLA is a search for integration in methodology, seeking to combine differing research traditions. Rick Slaughter considers it a paradigmatic method that reveals deep worldview commitments beneath surface phenomena. 1 Writes Slaughter: Causal layered analysis ... provides a richer account of what is being studied than the more common empiricist or predictive orientation which merely ‘skims the surface’. But because mastery of the different layers calls for critical and hermeneutic skills that originate in the humanities, some futures practitioners may find the method challenging at first.2 This article intends to reduce the possible difficulties in understanding and using causal layered analysis by providing a methodological perspective to the context of critical futures research, namely, poststructuralism. Causal layered analysis has been successfully used in a variety of workshops and futures courses in the last sixteen years. -
INAYATULLAH, Sohail. Causal Layered Analysis
Futures, Vol. 30, No. 8, pp. 815–829, 1998 Pergamon 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0016–3287/98 $19.00 ϩ 0.00 PII: S0016–3287(98)00086-X CAUSAL LAYERED ANALYSIS Poststructuralism as method Sohail Inayatullah Causal layered analysis is offered as a new futures research method. It utility is not in predicting the future but in creating transformative spaces for the creation of alternative futures. Causal layered analysis consists of four levels: the litany, social causes, discourse/worldview and myth/metaphor. The challenge is to conduct research that moves up and down these layers of analysis and thus is inclusive of different ways of knowing. 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved In the context of using poststructuralism as a research method, this article introduces a new futures research method—causal layered analysis (CLA). Causal layered analysis is concerned less with predicting a particular future and more with opening up the present and past to create alternative futures. It focuses less on the horizontal spatiality of futures—in contrast to techniques such as emerging issues analysis, scenarios and back- casting—and more on the vertical dimension of futures studies, of layers of analysis. Causal layered analysis opens up space for the articulation of constitutive discourses, which can then be shaped as scenarios. Rick Slaughter considers it a paradigmatic method that reveals deep worldview committments behind surface phenomena.1 Writes Slaughter, ‘Causal layered analysis... provides a richer account of what is being studied than the more common empiricist or predictive orientation which merely ’skims the sur- face’. -
Final Report
Report CDKN EYE Evaluation 2014 FINAL REPORT Date: June 2015 Submitted by Itad Authors: Gil Yaron, Robbie Gregorowski, Isabel Vogel, Paula Silva Villanueva, Alex Dorgan Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................................................. 1 Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................................... iii Acronyms ............................................................................................................................................................ iv CDKN EYE5 Executive Summary ................................................................................................ vi 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1 2 Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 3 2.1 Overview ................................................................................................................................... -
A Guide to Strategic Foresight Framing the Future!2
FRAMING THE FUTURE A GUIDE TO STRATEGIC FORESIGHT FRAMING THE FUTURE!2 CONTENTS WHAT IS STRATEGIC FORESIGHT? 3 STEP 1: WHAT FUTURE? 6 STEP 2: TRENDS, NOT OPINIONS – BASING YOUR FUTURE ON FACTS 8 STEP 3: MORE THAN ONE FUTURE 11 STEP 3B: TRANSFORMATIONAL FACTORS 15 STEP 4: DEFINING OUTRAGEOUS SUCCESS 17 STEP 5: BACKCASTING – MOVING FROM THE FUTURE TO THE PRESENT 20 STEP 6: THE FUTURE STARTS TODAY 23 RESOURCES 24 FRAMING THE FUTURE!3 WHAT IS STRATEGIC FORESIGHT? “MY TAKEAWAY IS THAT STRATEGIC FORESIGHT IS REALLY ABOUT LONG-TERM STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE.” – MARTIN BRADY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SCHOOLS INSURANCE AUTHORITY “Strategic foresight” is a bland term for a great idea: to look into the future and figure out what’s coming, so you can be ready. Strategic foresight is diferent than strategic planning. Strategic planning looks at what you’ve historically ofered to members and asks, “How › can we do this a little better, faster or more efciently? How can we improve or expand upon what we’re currently doing?” Strategic foresight looks 10 or 20 years into the future and asks, “What will our future pool › members value? What kind of products and services will our members need, and how can we best serve them?” Strategic planning is great if your environment is stable and unchanging. Strategic foresight is better when you’re facing “VUCA” – volatility, uncertainty, chaos and ambiguity. FRAMING THE FUTURE!4 HOW DO PUBLIC ENTITY POOLS USE STRATEGIC FORESIGHT? AGRiP members use strategic foresight when they want to anticipate the future, innovate new products or services, or strengthen their membership advantages. -
Taking Futures Seriously: Forecasting As Method in Robotics Law and Policy
DRAFT We Robot 2019 Taking Futures Seriously: Forecasting as Method in Robotics Law and Policy Stephanie Ballard and Ryan Calo University of Washington Tech Policy Lab Seattle, WA, USA A central challenge in setting law and policy around emerging technology is predicting how technology will evolve. In failing to consider the future of technology, we are often left with laws and policies that fall short of our technological reality. The 99th United States Congress had no experience with the commercial internet, for example, leaving it ill-equipped to envision the future of communications technology or to understand how widespread access to citizen information would need to be regulated. Indeed the laws Congress passed in 1986, which still govern electronic communications to this day, made assumptions about the nature of remote computing that have not obtained for decades. In the 1990’s, the Department of Transportation envisioned that driverless cars would ride upon “smart” roads, similar to a trolley. The DOT issued extensive guidance along these lines—proposing, for instance, heavy investment in infrastructure. Today, autonomous vehicles are on the roads in several states, but they do not run on tracks. Instead, they are self- contained robots capable of sensing and responding to ordinary environments. The difficulty in predicting the trajectory of new technology can give rise to a number of unfortunate consequences regarding policy. One is staleness—outdated rules, such as the 1986 law governing electronic communications privacy, that nevertheless persist through inertia or entrenched interest. A second is waste—the over-investment in a particular instantiation of a technology, such as the investment in “smart” infrastructure by the DOT in the 1990’s. -
Science & Technology Trends 2020-2040
Science & Technology Trends 2020-2040 Exploring the S&T Edge NATO Science & Technology Organization DISCLAIMER The research and analysis underlying this report and its conclusions were conducted by the NATO S&T Organization (STO) drawing upon the support of the Alliance’s defence S&T community, NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA). This report does not represent the official opinion or position of NATO or individual governments, but provides considered advice to NATO and Nations’ leadership on significant S&T issues. D.F. Reding J. Eaton NATO Science & Technology Organization Office of the Chief Scientist NATO Headquarters B-1110 Brussels Belgium http:\www.sto.nato.int Distributed free of charge for informational purposes; hard copies may be obtained on request, subject to availability from the NATO Office of the Chief Scientist. The sale and reproduction of this report for commercial purposes is prohibited. Extracts may be used for bona fide educational and informational purposes subject to attribution to the NATO S&T Organization. Unless otherwise credited all non-original graphics are used under Creative Commons licensing (for original sources see https://commons.wikimedia.org and https://www.pxfuel.com/). All icon-based graphics are derived from Microsoft® Office and are used royalty-free. Copyright © NATO Science & Technology Organization, 2020 First published, March 2020 Foreword As the world Science & Tech- changes, so does nology Trends: our Alliance. 2020-2040 pro- NATO adapts. vides an assess- We continue to ment of the im- work together as pact of S&T ad- a community of vances over the like-minded na- next 20 years tions, seeking to on the Alliance. -
VFS Primer on Foresight and Futures Studies
Primer on Foresight and Futures Studies This page intentionally left blank Reframing the future Vision Foresight Strategy LLC (VFS) is a Honolulu-based firm that provides foresight and strategic analysis services to senior organizational leaders operating in contexts of high complexity and high uncertainty. Drawing upon a global network of academically trained futurists, seasoned global executives, and experienced management consultants, VFS offers clients a spectrum of services that stretch from original forecasts and scenario projects to organizational foresight training to strategy development. VFS was founded by Dr. Richard Lum, who holds a doctorate from the futures studies program at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. VFS teams are routinely composed of futurists trained in the two longest-running futures studies programs in the United States: the University of Hawai‘i and the University of Houston. VFS team members have been published in the Journal of Futures Studies, the journal Futures, the journal Foresight. Dr. Lum was a founding member of the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) and is a full member of the World Futures Studies Federation. VFS’ core expertise is the integration of formal futures studies methods with strategic thinking and strategy development. Client deliverables typically include trend and emerging issues analyses, original scenario forecasts, vision (preferred futures) development, strategy development workshops, and foresight skill development. Since the company’s founding in 2001 it has participated in scenario projects for clients such as the US Army Logistics Command, the UK Government, PepsiCo, Grant Thornton UK, and numerous other organizations. VFS team members have conducted foresight, horizons scanning, scenario, and strategy work for a variety of clients and projects that include: Futurium (the European Union’s experimental platform for crowdsourcing scanning and foresight for policy), US Pacific Command, the UK Defra Baseline Scan, the UK Foresight Programme, and the State Justice Institute. -
Learning from the Future Through Scenario Planning
Learning from the future through scenario planning Michael J Blyth Four Scenes Pty Ltd March 2005 Decisions made today are usually for an uncertain future. The future is unknowable, yet we choose to devote a lot of resources and effort to discussing and studying possibilities before we make decisions about new directions or new investments. Van der Heijden (2000, p.31) suggests the reason we do this is that there is at least something in the future which is predictable. There are many approaches to discovering what the future might hold, but few provide the insights and genuine learning that scenario planning can provide. Scenarios can help decision-makers understand what is truly uncertain and what is more predictable. This paper provides an introduction to scenario planning, explaining what scenarios are, why and when to use scenarios and how to create scenarios. What are scenarios? Scenarios are instruments for ordering people’s perceptions about alternative futures in which decisions made today might play out. A scenario embodies a plausible view or perception of the future in a given year linked to conditions in the present via an internally consistent sequence of events. A scenario could be described as a road map from the present to the future. The use of scenarios in strategic decision making and corporate planning was pioneered by the Royal Dutch/Shell Company during the 1970s. The method is best suited to organisations and industries which are extremely sensitive to external factors beyond their control and where time frames are relatively long. The use of scenario planning techniques as described in this paper is widespread in private industry and in the public sector. -
Scenario Planning: a Tool for Conservation in an Uncertain World
Essay Scenario Planning: a Tool for Conservation in an Uncertain World GARRY D. PETERSON,*‡ GRAEME S. CUMMING,† AND STEPHEN R. CARPENTER* *Center for Limnology, 680 N. Park Street, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706–1492, U.S.A. †Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Newins-Ziegler 303, Box 110430, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, U.S.A. Abstract: Conservation decisions about how, when, and where to act are typically based on our expectations for the future. When the world is highly unpredictable and we are working from a limited range of expecta- tions, however, our expectations will frequently be proved wrong. Scenario planning offers a framework for developing more resilient conservation policies when faced with uncontrollable, irreducible uncertainty. A scenario in this context is an account of a plausible future. Scenario planning consists of using a few con- trasting scenarios to explore the uncertainty surrounding the future consequences of a decision. Ideally, sce- narios should be constructed by a diverse group of people for a single, stated purpose. Scenario planning can incorporate a variety of quantitative and qualitative information in the decision-making process. Often, con- sideration of this diverse information in a systemic way leads to better decisions. Furthermore, the participa- tion of a diverse group of people in a systemic process of collecting, discussing, and analyzing scenarios builds shared understanding. The robustness provided by the consideration of multiple possible futures has served several groups well; we present examples from business, government, and conservation planning that illustrate the value of scenario planning. For conservation, major benefits of using scenario planning are (1) increased understanding of key uncertainties, (2) incorporation of alternative perspectives into conservation planning, and (3) greater resilience of decisions to surprise. -
Futures Studies Jim Dator Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies Department of Political Science University of Hawaii at Manoa
Futures Studies Jim Dator Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies Department of Political Science University of Hawaii at Manoa Published as "Futures Studies ," in William Sims Bainbridge, ed., Leadership in Science and Technology. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Reference Series, 2011, Vol. 1, Chapter Four, pp. 32-40. Who Are Futurists, and What Do They Do? It is a common cliché to assert that all humans are futurists. Without a doubt a distinct human capability is to dream, scheme, plan ahead, and then create the technologies necessary to strive for and perhaps attain the dream. But many other species do so as well. Humans are not unique in this except for the scope of their dreams and the power of their technologies. But if all humans are futurists, then humans are also chemists, physicists, historians, priests and everything else. Yet we still needed physicists and engineers to get to the Moon in spite of eons of dreams and stories about space flight, and it seems even the most fundamental and protestant among us still feel the need for some kind of priests to keep us out of hell, and so it probably is the case that futurists can be useful in helping us think more clearly about the causes and consequences of our dreams and fears about the futures. No one can accurately "predict" exactly what "the future" of anything of consequence will be, though there are many charlatans who say they can, and who are paid big bucks for their "predictions", almost all of which prove not only to be false, but dangerously so.