Raphael Thys
Source de l'illustration: The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption
Source of the illustration: The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption
While there are no outright alternatives to making assumptions, there are considerations in how assumptions might be used or relied upon:
- Acknowledge the limitations and increasing cost of assumptions: Holding on to beliefs and flawed assumptions will have an increasing cost, including missed opportunities. The futures are unknown, and we all constantly make assumptions – some wrong, some right. But to rely on assumptions as if they are definitive facts is often costly, and sometimes dangerous. Fixed assumptions distort reality, can mislead strategy, policy, and decision-making.
- The futures are open: Outcomes are not predetermined. The future is not a prisoner to any fixed assumptions. Scanning early signals while exploring next-order implications and imagining the futures we desire can galvanize agency to reframe perceptions of what does not yet exist.
- In a dynamic world, static assumptions need constant updating: Even if assumptions are substantiated and proven to be fact at any point in time, situations and contexts evolve. What may have been correct yesterday may not be tomorrow in a contingent, constantly updating world.
- Nonlinearity amplifies assumptions: Appreciate that, when relying on fragile assumptions in nonlinear environments, assumptions will be amplified.
The world is multilayered and change is messy. Over-simplifying the kaleidoscope of possible outcomes is a constraint to the multiplicity of opportunities.
With time, all assumptions magnify and amplify; wrong assumptions cascade and blow-up.
Most of the time forecasting is quite good and this is what makes it so dangerous… Forecasting fails to anticipate major changes or major shifts. Shifts that make the whole strategy obsolete.
Futures Thinking & Scenario Development: Asking Questions
Futures mindsets do not preclude the use of assumptions. However, with foresight, we are not looking for a predetermined answer or specific outcome. Foresight is the capacity to explore the possible futures systemically, as well as drivers of change, to inform short-term decision-making.
We ask questions, challenge views, broaden possibilities, and explore what we may not be thinking about – what lies below the iceberg. We ask why?, why not?, what if?, what if not?, so what?. For these questions focused on the futures, there is no data. The futures are open and there are no facts relating to what lies ahead. It is an exploration which appreciates the multiplicity of the futures – the exciting, diverse, and layered set of options, opportunities, and outcomes which may arise.
In foresight, insights from data and analysis that evaluate historic cycles, drivers, and trends are helpful for sensemaking, but only insofar as they provide a snapshot of the existing world as a base to start exploring from (not the finality). Our imagination helps build and explore many different scenarios, outcomes, and possible futures. Some of these are more probable and plausible; others may be our vision of the preferable futures; we will also integrate some outliers. These outliers, such as Black Swans (unpredictable and rare but extremely high-impact events) and Butterfly Effects (small cause having outsized spillover effects), are still possible.
The difference between prediction and foresight, or when one is more appropriate than the other for dealing with uncertainty.
After the first atomic bomb was dropped during the World War II, the world was confronted with the unprecedented possibility of nuclear annihilation. There were previously no comparable ways of ending civilization. The idea of using scenarios for situations of high uncertainty was originally developed by Herman Kahn (RAND Corporation) for military and nuclear strategy, and Pierre Wack (Royal Dutch Shell) for business strategy in the 1970s.
Foresight and scenario planning build on linear strategic planning, but the fundamental departure is the recognition that the futures are different from the past, that longer timeframes matter (beyond the next few quarters or years), and that unpredictability and next-order impacts need to somehow be captured. Scenarios can help solve problems differently as they imagine a world which does not yet exist. Foresight, with scenario planning, allows the exploration and juxtaposition of a multiplicity of possible outcomes without having to rely on extrapolating assumptions, the compounding effects of these extrapolations, or reliance on a singular, often arbitrary, outcome.
Scenarios typically offer narratives for a handful of alternative futures, some we may wish to create and others we need to prepare for. By looking a decade ahead, we can focus on departures from the world we know. We are focusing on unknowns, acknowledging those deep uncertainties we cannot ignore as we project the next 10 years. We want to integrate the constants and trends we observe as a baseline, while also imagining the cascading impacts which might arise from the drivers of disruption and emerging issues. The scenarios will reflect our appreciation of the degrees of uncertainty, what might be at stake in certain circumstances, and the breadth of imagined possibilities beyond what can be inferred or deduced from analysis.
These scenarios are dynamic living narratives, and require updating as the world itself evolves.
The purpose of scenario development is preparation, not prediction. This readying benefits any eventualities – well beyond the handful of specific future scenarios imagined. The value in thoughtful scenario development is to enhance awareness and mental flexibility for even the most extreme (but plausible) changes, while rewiring how our minds and systems are programmed. The objective is to build comfort with changing environments, which can represent major departures from the world we are accustomed to.
As we evaluate the opportunities and risks that emanate from the scenarios developed, we scrutinize the potential consequences of the different alternative futures.
This allows us to build resilience and the capacity to sustain even the most serious impacts and outcomes.
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