Identifying which of these driving forces are both critical to our business and highly uncertain enables us to look at alternative futures that hold hidden danger or unrealised opportunities. Scenarios are customised to the context of a specific challenge or decision faced by the business today. Therefore, every scenario effort begins by identifying the focal issue or decision, coupled with an exploration of identity, strategic agenda, and key assumptions of the client organisation. The participatory and creative process sensitises managers to the outside world. Participating in the scenario building process improves a management teams' ability to manage uncertainty and risk.
Risky decisions become more transparent and key threats and opportunities are identified.
Scenarios provide an effective mechanism for assessing existing strategies and plans and developing and assessing options. Scenarios help us to understand today better by imagining tomorrow and increases the breadth of our vision and enable us to spot change earlier. Scenarios are very different to forecasting Forecasting is a very useful tool, so long as you are absolutely certain that things will continue as they have in the past. However, discontinuities often bring surprises that forecasters overlook. Click on one of the links below to download further articles.