The future scorecard: combining external and internal scenarios to create strategic foresight

2005 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Fink ◽  
Bernard Marr ◽  
Andreas Siebe ◽  
Jens‐Peter Kuhle
Keyword(s):  
The Future ◽  
Strategic Foresight

A Three-Level Evaluation Process of Cultural Readiness for Strategic Foresight Projects

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-350
Author(s):  
Mateus Panizzon ◽  
Paulo Fernando Pinto Barcellos
Keyword(s):  
Future Orientation ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Hypothetical Scenario ◽  
The Future ◽  
Strategic Foresight

A critical issue in Strategic Foresight approaches is the expected effect on the organizational and individual behavior change, as understanding, mapping, and influencing the desired future is a function of the group’s effort to adopt a more disruptive or conservative scenario in a long-term thinking and planning context. As a learning process, a Strategic Foresight experience, due to the nature of new knowledge co-creation, can foster mindset changes. However, at the same time, a Foresight project deals with the existing group assumptions due to national and organizational cultures, which can be more (or less) oriented to long-term or disruptive thinking, as well as the established managerial mentality about the future orientation in strategic thinking. These cultural assumptions can exert positive or negative influence in a Foresight mindset, and should be assessed and understood previously, as the overall cultural readiness can affect the performance of a Foresight project in general. Also, the analysis of the cultural aspect as an evaluation process can generate new learning, when compared a pre-assessment with a post-assessment. Thus, the posed question is, “How to assess cultural dimensions before and after Foresight projects?” Based on Hofstede National Cultural model, Cameron and Quinn Competing Values model, and Amsteus Managerial Foresight model, this article proposes to discuss the applicability of a three-level (national, organizational, and individual) evaluation process to assess the cultural environment readiness for Strategic Foresight projects and the influence of a Foresight project on participants’ perception of the future through a two-phase approach. This research contributes to Strategic Foresight methods by proposing a research agenda about the cultural perspective in Foresight assessment. Managerial contributions about the pre-assessment interpretations of the proposed three-level process to better understand the cultural profile of the participant group are also discussed in a hypothetical scenario application.

Big History as a Scaffold for Futures Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Voros
Keyword(s):  
Global Scale ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Comparable Level ◽  
The Future ◽  
Postgraduate Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Strategic Foresight ◽  
Big History

This paper does several things. First, it reports on some of the history of the Master of Strategic Foresight (MSF) at Swinburne (2001–2018) to provide some background information that, it is hoped, may be useful for others seeking to create or develop under- and postgraduate foresight courses in the future. Second, it also describes some observations made during the early years of the MSF regarding some of the characteristics of the students undertaking it—as compared with other nonforesight students also undertaking comparable-level postgraduate studies—which had a bearing on how we designed and revised the MSF over several iterations, and which, it is similarly hoped, may also be useful for foresight course designers of the future. Third, it notes that the introduction of “Big History” in 2015 at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels seems to have engendered a somewhat easier “uptake” of futures/foresight thinking by those students who were introduced to it, in contrast to cohorts of comparable students in previous years who were not. It is speculated that the Big History perspective was an important factor in this, and some related writings by other academics supporting this conjecture are sketched. It is then argued that, in particular, Big History seems to be especially well-suited to the framing of global-scale/civilizational futures. Finally, a number of remarks are made about how and why I believe Big History provides an ideal basis for engendering futures/foresight thinking, especially with regard to global/civilizational futures, as noted, as well as for framing The Anthropocene.

scholarly journals ‘Concept Cars’ as Vehicles for Change in SMEs

2020 ◽  
pp. 40-69
Author(s):  
Javier Ricardo Mejía Sarmiento ◽  
Gert Pasman ◽  
Erik Jan Hultink ◽  
Pieter Jan Stappers
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Strategic Value ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Concrete Objects ◽  
Point Of Purchase ◽  
The Future ◽  
Shopping Experience ◽  
Strategic Foresight ◽  
Time Frames ◽  
Future Visions

Making prototypes of fictitious artifacts has long been applied in corporations as a design-led way to envisioning the future. These techniques make use of design to explore speculative futures translating abstract questions into concrete objects and bringing the human dimension and experience into futures techniques. The design-led strategic foresight techniques follow making activities – including visual synthesis, prototyping and storytelling – and result in experimental and experiential artifacts offering concrete, hands-on and specific images of the futures. An example of these techniques is the making and sharing of concept cars, a long-standing practice in the automotive industry. These artifacts facilitate the sharing of future visions, which embody future ideas, to diverse people. Whereas corporations use these design-led strategic foresight techniques as a driver for innovation, small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the backbone of society and the global economy, have been deprived of these kinds of explorations due to their being resource intensive. To help these enterprises, we developed DIVE (design, innovation, vision and exploration) based on design-led strategic foresight techniques developed by corporations but adapted to the scale and needs of these small players. DIVE helps external designers and company representatives in making and sharing artifacts to envision the future of their company. The technique follows an analogy that invites participants to make a hole in the world as it is and descend underwater to the speculative futures and then come back to the reality. Along with this plunge into fiction, participants identify trends, create ideas about the future, and make a prototype of an artifact that is subsequently used to motivate people to talk about the company’s future and present. This artifact, the vision concept, includes ideas about the future product or service, the context and the business itself. This paper aims to evaluate DIVE as a design-led strategic foresight technique and focuses on the benefits and limitations of its application. It includes two cases that explored the future of the shopping experience for the company Solutions Group. It is a Colombian medium-sized enterprise that develops and produces point-of-purchase materials for consumer goods corporations such as Procter & Gamble. In both cases, the participants employed DIVE activities to make and share a vision concept. At the end of the cases, the DIVE outcomes were validated by three external innovation experts. DIVE proved its efficacy in supporting designers in setting future visions, prototyping vision concepts and stories and making recommendations for different time frames, and participants also learned about the strategic value of design.

2. The future multiplied

2017 ◽  
pp. 44-62
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Gidley
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Alternative Futures ◽  
Everyday Language ◽  
Futures Research ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
Strategic Foresight ◽  
Scientific Positivism

What if there is not one future that can be colonized and controlled, but many possible futures that can be imagined, designed, and created collaboratively? In everyday language we speak of a singular future, which has both conceptual and political implications. ‘The future multiplied’ outlines early future research—influenced by scientific positivism—with its predictive-empirical approach, then discusses pluralism in the social sciences and the shift to multiple futures thinking. Pluralizing the future opens it up for envisioning and creating alternative futures to the status quo. The chapter concludes with a variety of methods used in multiple futures research approaches, including the four-step Swinburne methodology used in strategic foresight applications.

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