When the price crashed, Shell managed better than any other oil giant. After the crash, we were. What's more, we didn't have to mortgage our future. We could make investments for the long term. As you might suspect, scenario planning has made little impact in MBA circles.
Students are too busy analyzing cases to create scenarios on their own.
Look at any one of the 100 business plans today and you won't even find a glimpse of assumption-challenging. At giants such as General Motors and International Business Machines, isolated groups generate provocative scenarios, but they have never become part of the organization's world view or vocabulary. People talk in market share numbers and trend lines, not about basic assumptions or how their customers view the world. Hire a science fiction writer.