11. Scenario planning

Scenario planning

• A strategic planning method use d to make flexible long-term plans operating in conditions of high uncertainty

• As the name implies scenarios are generated and then evaluated

• Can help us to explore possible, probable and/or preferable futures

Scenario planning steps

1. Identification of a focal issue

2. Identify key drivers of change

3. Select the most two important drivers

4. Building scenarios

5. Test scenarios

6. Summarize overall strategies

Identification of a Focal issue

• Very similar tot he idea of identifying the central adaptive challenge

• Can be iterative as ideas can change through the process

What does having more diverse stakeholders do?

• Allows a more diverse understanding of the issue

What are the two key drivers of change?

• Predetermined elements

• Critical uncertainties

Predetermined elements

• Relatively stable or predictable

  • i.e. Demographic shifts

Critical uncertainties

• Unstable or unpredictable, such as:

  • Government regulations,

  • Natural disasters, or

  • New technologies

Building scenarios

• Restrict yourself to formulating three or four scenarios with sharply contrasting futures:
  1. The baseline, business-as-usual, world as-it-is scenario;
  2. The scenario which one driver alone dominates
  3. The scenario which the second driver alone dominate, and 4. One with both drivers present
  4. One with both drivers present

How should we build scenarios

• Scenarios should usefully expand and challenge current thinking about the system

• Scenarios convert the key alternatives into dynamic stories

• Successful scenarios are vivid and different, can be told easily, and plausibly capture future transformation

Selecting the two most important drivers

• Don’t complicate scenarios by selecting too many drivers

• Select the two most uncertain and important ones

Testing scenarios

• Test for consistency and plausibility

• Verify assumptions bout actor behavior

Summarize overall strategies

• You don’t have to choose amongst the scenarios or rank or rate the probability of them occurring

• Rather, use them all to form consensus about the world and to recognize which ones are in play at any given time