This article is an excerpt from the recently published ppai strategic foresight playbook. The role of scenarios in strategic foresight sciencedirect. In 202014, the hungarian ministry of defense hun mod engaged in its first structured strategic foresight process, a process designed to examine events that might affect hungary until 2030. This article discusses the role of scenarios in strategic foresight. Lessons from using scenarios for strategic foresight. All available for free download whether innovation means finding the next market, describing the future customer, or developing an amazing team who can reliably take new visions to new markets, this playbook addresses two essential topics. Strategic foresight analysis can help decision makers map the future.
Strategic foresight group sfg is a think tank engaged in crafting new policy concepts that enable decision makers to prepare for a future in uncertain times. Founded in 2002 to create new forms of intellectual capital, our body of work today encompasses over 50 countries, across four continents. Traditionally, it is a highly theoretical discipline. Strategic foresight is the ability to create and maintain a highquality, coherent, and functional forward view and to use the insights arising in organizationally useful ways. Reasons for implementing a strategic foresight system. Information and data can be collected with free or commercial tools and solutions. Strategic foresight was launched so the emergency management community can seek to understand how the world is changing, and how those changes may affect the future of emergency management. The sfa sets the foundation for the followon report, the framework for future alliance operations ffao. Major corporate companies have been leveraging the power of foresight for years. A quick and clean guide to creating foresight by richard a k lum, strategic foresight.
The futures school takes the theory and makes it actionable. Two components are organically linked to strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is not about predictions of the future. The futures works enables the development of themes and messages and provides support for innovations and resource investments. Strategic foresight requires a longer and broader view of the environment and, as we at the institute for alternative futures iaf would argue, a conscious attention to the organizations vision and visionary scenarios in the environment. Dawn yip leads a foresight exercise at the undp global. It seems that every business has a strategic planning process and if you dont. Our field must recognize all the parts of itself as it grows up, so we can better share and compare our models and methods, and do better collaborative work on foresight. The six ps of strategic foresight using the core thinking types well. The strategic foresight analysis sfa 2017 report aims to support nato leaderships visualization of the future secu rity environment, which is c haracterized by a rapid rate of change, complexity, uncertainty and interconnectedness.
Strategic foresight is a concept i deem synonymous with corporate foresight. Pdf strategic foresight process improvements for the. At the strategic foresight workshop, you will learn about tools and methods you can use to help you identify future scenarios, analyze the impacts of those futures, and better enable you to prepare and make appropriate decisions today. This presentation and the strategic foresight playbook were.
In a complex and uncertain world accurate prediction is a fiction. Frankjurgen richter, former director of the world economic forum,introduced the seminar series managing global challenges. A highlights sheet is available to download for free. While subtle, there is a distinction between vision and foresight. A survey of methods, resources, and institutional arrangements joseph m.
Theory of and within foresight what does a theory of. Strategic foresight can be defined as a process of creative evaluation that applies available knowledge and forecasting analysis to potential futures. Playbook for strategic foresight and innovation geniusworks. This information can include, for example, trends and developments in their political. Scanning is the process of looking internally and externally to identify what is on the horizon that may impact the organization relative to the issues you framed in the prior step.
This text is intended as a note for the phd course, strategic foresight in engineering. Strategic foresight workshops the conference board of canada. One key to professionalizing the foresight field is finding better definitions of what strategic foresight work actually is, and who engages in it. Strategic foresight instead, is about being prepared for different futures that are all possible, plausible and preferred. Note this post is part of a series on using strategic foresight to influence longerrange innovation investments. A brief overview of strategic foresight workshop slides. Adam gordon, an instructor on aalto university executive educations strategic foresight program, the problem with forecasting lies not so much in the quality of the data analytics but in a fundamental misunderstanding about where quantitative analysis is an appropriate tool for inquiry and where techniques for qualitative.
What you learn here will help you coach and inspire those around you, as well as advance your own efforts in strategic foresight and innova on. The mastering strategic foresight programme is a unique and exclusive threeday foresight leadership programme designed for forwardlooking senior decisionmakers who want to advance their capacity for strategic action and achieve valueadding impact through the use of strategic foresight. Implementing such a process can be managed and executed within government or by an external organisation. Undps catalyst for new thinking, strategy and action in the area of. Keywords strategic foresight, federal government, strategic planning. Download prescient introduction to strategic foresight prescientguideintroductiontostrategicforesight.
The second part is an introduction to foresight processes in practice. Strategic foresight methodology to identify business opportunities and technology trends, publisher. The article suggests the key ideas that one needs to think about in doing strategic foresight in todays environment of small staffs, tight budgets, and emphasis on the. One famous example is the energy petrochemical giant royal dutch shell. Strategic foresight group anticipating and influencing. Download the handbook to learn how cities are innovating with intention to. Typically, planned actions require a substantial period of time for implementation and the actual outcomes from these actions can only be observed after an even longer period. Five strategic foresight tools to enhance business model. The full innovation leaders guide to strategic foresight is available for download strategic foresight enables organizations to build a proprietary view of. Strategic foresight is a set of skills and tools used to explore potential futures, so that you can plan for and take advantage of them.
Whats your futuresix steps for gaining strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is generally focused at the mid or longterm time frame. Whats the difference between strategic planning and strategic foresight. The case for strategic foresight as design tool canadian. Not a report a carefully designed and purposeful intervention strategic foresight is a learning process. Strategic foresight, also known as futures studies, is a discipline organizations use to gather and process information about their future operating environment. Whats your futuresix steps for gaining strategic foresight page 2 scanning the second step is scanning. For one, resultsbased management rbm demands an enhanced cohe1. A practical approach to strategic foresight and scenarios.
Strategic foresight enables leaders to ask better questions about the future, make strategic choices explicit and support the discovery, design and consideration of more and better options for action. It is about mirroring the possible and potential futures against the understanding of organizationspecific capabilities, and those of ones competitors. Andy hines in his article, strategic foresight, identifies six critical steps to develop the foresight you need to navigate in this rapidly changing environment. Framing, scanning, forecasting, visioning, planning, and. Strategic foresight, as a discipline, has been around for decades. At its best, the process allows policymakers to explore possible futures, and pursue policies that are most likely to bring them to fruition. Download a free pdf of the playbook no signup needed or buy the print version as one place to start. Special emphasis is given to scenarios, which are one of the main tools that are used in strategic foresight. Article information, pdf download for strategic foresight in the federal. Models exist that help your derive plausible scenarios for the future, aiding and influencing your decisions, big or small. First, as foresight is a quite ambiguously defined and understood entity, we shortly present our understanding of what foresight is. T hrough strategic foresight, we peer through our customers eyes into their world, identify their unmet needs and see new solutions we can provide whether yours is a small shop looking to grow beyond your current set of customers or increase your sales by understanding unmet needs, or a larger.
Strategic foresight and government to bind themselves into rigid positions. Strategic guidance derived from foresight and scenariobased planning guides the future operations of the entire organization. Strategic foresight advice should be broadly based, and wherever possible backed up by empirical evidence, so that it can be contested and debated by others in the policy domain. The case for strategic foresight as design tool the design needed and practiced in government departments and the broader public sector is often of a systemic nature. Look for this icon to find more strategic foresight. It starts by discussing the need for strategic foresight over the next decade, and a set of qualities, structures and processes that facilitate the use of strategic foresight for renewal. In contrast, strategic foresight concentrates on anticipating those forces that may come into play to. The playbook is packed with multiple methods and techniques, stepbystep instructions, tips, examples, case studies, and more. Strategic foresight also provides insights into and the basis for what should be assessed and. Each year vision foresight strategy vfs produces the emerging issues for conflict and security report ei4cs, which identifies future issues that may play a role in shaping the nature and conduct of human conflict in the years ahead. To effectively spot new trends, strategic foresight teams need to have a much wider range of information sources than.
Download free ebooks at please click the advert 4 strategic management contents 1 introduction 7 2 the basis of strategy. Strategic foresight is a collaborative effort of the emergency management community facilitated by the federal emergency management agency fema. It presents the main principles of strategic foresight from a practitioners point of view, including an approach by which you can learn about the future and study trends, drivers and signals of change. The six ps of strategic foresight the foresight guide. The requirement for institutional foresight is affirmed by recent. In strategic foresight, practitioners study how to proactively plan and create the future. Mastering strategic foresight programme the global. Unfortunately however, until someone finds a way to break free of the spacetime continuum. Strategic foresight analysis usually involves the following stages. Foresight is a strategic thinking capability, so the use of foresight methodologies occurs at this first stage of the strategy development process that is, the use of foresight methodologies seeks to expand the perception of.
In 2006, strategic foresight group along with geneva based horasis group, headed by dr. The strategic foresight analysis sfa 20 report was the product of initial efforts to establish institutional foresight within act to provide nato, national leaders and defence planners with a common perspective of the challenges facing the alliance in the decades to come. Pdf on jan 1, 20, alun rhydderch and others published strategic foresight find, read and cite all the research you need on researchgate. The book first explores how we think about the future, looking at. He focuses on succession management and leadership development in smallmedium businesses and ministries. View strategic foresight research papers on academia. Pdf strategic foresight methodology to identify business. In so doing, they can identify strategic threats to avoid or mitigate as well as new opportunities to exploit. It enable us to see and shape a deeply desirable future by making and living by wise strategic commitments in the present commitments that are sound and contextsensitive enough to survive context change and actually contribute to the cocreation of a future we desire given this understanding, we note. Download the guide to learn more, and find out how strategic foresight can help your firm stand strong even in unexpected storms. In this sense, strategic foresight is fundamentally different from the notion of five or 10 year plans. While strategic planning is a vital competency for todays leaders as they craft a vision for the future, an equally important leadership competency is strategic foresight to anticipate how this future might unfold.