They can be understood better by multiple approaches and should always be revisited after more detailed futures issues have been evaluated. There is still much to be done for refining details, and uncertainties and unknowns must be considered, but the concept of driving forces makes the job of developing foresight much easier. For example, the baby boom in the United States is a major driving force as large numbers of people move into the 50s and the quantity of 18 year olds decreases. There are 5 main entries, a few subcategories to add focus, and the whole summary is on less than a page. Economics depression as corrective mechanism post-scarcity economics 5.
Trends are the things that change most frequently, paradigm shifts change the least frequently.
Trends are the way to get close to a problem or to convert abstract futuring processes into something pragmatic and understandable by others. One must account for potential uncertainties, and focus more on those where the degree of uncertainty might be high or the potential impact significant. Probabilities can be assigned if you are inclined, but generally, just listing them will suffice. Unknowns are extremely important. Mike Marien coined the term gbgb, for great big glaring blind spots.