As higher education appears to be inundated with seemingly endless change, the ability to be able to clearly understand the future environment will become more critical. This paper examines how we can best learn how to satisfy this task. Scenario planning is misnamed.
Scenario planning has nothing to do with planning.
Planning is something that we do when we are trying to accomplish something. In a higher education environment, planning is what we do to set goals, both educational and administrative. Inherent in the belief that we are doing effective planning is the belief that we know what we are planning for, what the future will be. Scenario planning is all about understanding our mental models of what the future might be. Scenario planning is something that is not used to a great extent in higher educational environments.