How to create the future for your organization?
Find an overview of tools and concepts, you can use to map the (possible) future for your organization:
Through doing these activities, you become better equipped to handle changing market conditions. This also allows you to look ahead, and (perhaps) allocate (internal) resources differently.
1. Do Scenario Analysis
Scenario analysis is a powerful tool for futuring and for trendwatching. By identifying potential future events and the resulting outcomes, businesses can prepare for what’s to come and stay ahead of the competition. This guide provides a step-by-step process for creating a scenario analysis, including identifying key drivers of change, developing future scenarios, and analyzing the results. With a scenario analysis, businesses can make informed decisions and stay ahead of the curve.
Here’s a sample outline for creating a scenario analysis to map the future for your organization:
1. Identify the objective and scope of the scenario analysis. This will help to focus the analysis and ensure that it is aligned with the organization’s goals.
2. Identify the key drivers and uncertainties that could impact the future of the organization. This can include both internal and external factors, such as technology, regulations, and market trends.
List the future elements you already see, and add other disciplines from your organization ecosystem to discuss this. Add extra internal different stakeholders (persons, who have a broader view) and get them in a room. List and map the possible trends, and make a list.
After making this list, define uncertainty levels (very uncertain, not certain, certain, very certain), map this, create a scenario with axes of uncertainty levels. Project this onto a time horizon of 1 year, 3 year, 5 years, 10 years, 30 years. Create the axes: key uncertainty level (high low) and impact to your organization (high low).
Certain you already know, mapping some unknows can be interesting. Try to go for uncertain elements with major impact to your organization (for example Robotics, Healthcare medicine, employee monitoring, technology changes, new materials, etc.)
3. Develop a set of scenarios that capture the range of potential outcomes for the key drivers and uncertainties. This can include both positive and negative scenarios, as well as scenarios that are more or less likely based on current information.
4. Analyze the impact of each scenario on the organization. This can include financial, operational, and strategic impacts.
5. Develop a set of recommendations based on the scenario analysis. This can include both short-term and long-term recommendations that address the key drivers and uncertainties.
6. Develop a plan to implement the recommendations. This can include identifying the resources and stakeholders needed to implement the recommendations, as well as any potential challenges or obstacles that may arise.
7. Do ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the scenario analysis. This can include regular reviews of the key drivers and uncertainties, as well as the impact of any changes on the organization. Perhaps reschedule this twice a year.
8. Update this after these sessions and rename them annually
2. Apply other options and models
Scenario analysis is one tool and there are many more concepts.
- Trend Analysis (DESTEP)
- Monitor general market trends (year report economist of growth sectors/ CAGR rates per market) – statista.com
- Magazines on Technology (MIT)
- Gartner’s Hypecycle
- Visit tradeshows in your industry
- Ask industry experts
- Assess Technology Readyness level (TR) for upcoming relevant technologies
- Do an internal expert workshop
- Ask a futurist expert to review the situation for you
- Forecast from current position and see where you (might) end (up) with unchanged policy
- Backcasting (retrace your actions from the point on the 3/5 year horizon, and work backwards – very powerful
- Read on fringes outside of your industry, look at art and new (product) designers, have a wide perspective
Anticipate change and be better prepared when potential new technologies and pitfalls arise. This iss also some form of risk management (managing business risk, evaluating changing markets, be better prepared for a (always) changing market landscape.
+Also have a point of view
You can also use forecasting
- Potential future (best case scenario) (+50%)
- Probable future (probable future – think in probabilities)
- Not so good future (worst case scenario) (-50%)
3. Thinking on what is beyond the horizon?
The more further (time) you look ahead, the fuzzyer it becomes. The uncertainties become wider.
- Uncertainty will be higher 3/10 years from now
- Business planning & business strategy usually use a 3-5 years time horizon, after this it becomes fuzzy, still important for a long term outlook (10 years, for city planning, government policies, major long term investments, and long term policy planning)
- Yearly planning, is well, a year
- Having a vision and mission guides you really well in these environments
Integrate this thinking into your business strategy and planning
And after mapping several futures in the macro environment, and the strategies for your organization to adapt this, this can become an yearly item in your strategy setting.
Indoing so fueling your anticipation of market developments. So you become better prepared for the future thus reducing your business risk. Ans you can anticipate better whats coming ahead, (so the investment decisions become a bit more clearer)
Benefits: Be better prepared and anticipate, see what’s coming next, while reducing risk
After doing this, your product or innovation development pipeline can be tweaked to integrate these trends into your product development roadmap, so in short you anticipate the change in your product offering.
Be prepared and anticipate better
Doing this consistently will create the process to anticipate market developments and be better positioned for your organizations directions and growth markets and adapting to changing market conditions.
Riding the waves of change
4. Develop a ‘futuring radar’
Think of this of a radar what’s coming, and how you will respond to it. Being better prepared will lower the business risk, and preemptively remove roadblocks. Also it will enhance your product development, so you can create better products and services that fit the (future) market.
5. Creating scenarios
and trend watching is a strategic process that enables businesses to envision and prepare for potential futures. Here’s how to craft a high-quality and SEO-friendly blog post that outlines the steps to create effective scenario analysis:
Step 1: Brainstorm Future Scenarios
Begin with broad brainstorming sessions to generate a variety of potential future scenarios. This can be a creative process, where imagination and forward-thinking are encouraged. During this phase, consider as many possibilities as you can without restricting the scope to what seems most likely (Professional Academy).
Step 2: Identify Trends and Driving Forces
After brainstorming, identify the key trends and driving forces that could shape the future. This includes technological advancements, economic shifts, political changes, and social dynamics. Understanding these elements lays the groundwork for more focused scenario planning (Clear Purpose Media).
Step 3: Create a Scenario Planning Template
Organize your findings by creating a scenario planning template. This should encompass the different scenarios you’ve brainstormed, as well as the trends and forces you’ve identified. A structured template helps in comparing scenarios and evaluating their respective implications (Professional Academy).
Step 4: Focus on Major Uncertainties
Select two to three major uncertainties that will have the most significant impact on the future and build scenarios around them. It’s important to prioritize and develop perspectives on each uncertainty, as they will form the basis of the scenarios you’ll eventually analyze (NetSuite).
Step 5: Develop Narratives for Each Scenario
Craft a narrative for each scenario. Describe who benefits, who loses, what challenges might arise, and how to adapt. These narratives should be detailed and reflect the impact on your business, helping to visualize the future and plan accordingly (Clear Purpose Media).
Step 6: Identify Implications and Develop Strategies
Review the implications of each scenario and develop strategies to address them. This stage involves critical thinking about how each scenario could play out and what it would mean for your business. The goal is to be prepared for various possibilities and have action plans ready (CREO, Inc.).
Step 7: Use Informed Assumptions for Financial Forecasting
Each scenario should be based on informed assumptions regarding your company’s performance and external factors like market conditions. This helps in better financial forecasting and prepares your business for different financial realities (Vena Solutions).
Step 8: Select Critical Factors for Your Forecasts
Choose the most critical and uncertain factors that create variation and challenges for your forecasts. These factors will be pivotal in developing robust scenarios that provide valuable insights into potential future developments (LinkedIn Advice).
Step 9: Combine Trends with Uncertainty
Explore trends based on the extent of uncertainty they present for the future. Combine these with the scenarios you’ve built to understand the range of possible outcomes and how to navigate them (De Ruijter Strategy).
Conclusion
By following these steps, you can create a comprehensive scenario analysis that equips your business with the necessary insights for futuring and trend watching. This process is not only about predicting the future but about being ready for it, (anticipation) whatever it may hold.
Good luck!
‘The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed’ – William Gibson.
