Scenarios can't predict the future, so what's the point?
That's right-scenarios can't predict the future but they are a mechanism to imagine multiple futures and gives us an opportunity to learn from 'future history'.
It enable us to learn from the future rather than use our past to predict an outcome. The opportunity to explore future environments and how they may impact on us enables us to be free from the constraints of our knowing. It gives us the opportunity to design a history of the future to inform our present actions. Scenario planning enables us to challenge the robustness of our futures. Scenario planning enables us to identify the strategic implications of our imagined futures. By identify a number of potential futures we can then evaluate our strategies across all of those and begin to see those strategies that will address a number of imagined futures. It gives us the confidence to look at what actions we must take now to respond to these multiple scenarios.
The point is that the use of scenarios supplements traditional planning processes. It provides us with an opportunity to explore multiple futures in way that enables us to relate to each other in a different way.
It gives us a rich range of possibility. Who would not want that?
Well put. I enjoyed this.
ReplyDeleteKia ora Wayne
ReplyDeleteThat's a good post. Would be great if you could add an indigenous knowledge perspective. I believe that Māori, for example, have an insightful temporal understanding of the relationship between past, present and future and how to view the past -- i.e always looking forward.