Scenario Planning
Which way to turn, to look? If
you think you're going to
create your organization's best future by
projecting forward from the past, think again.
The rate of change is
now fast enough, that whatever you think
you know about what will happen, actually takes you backward in your planning rather than forward.
In strategic thinking, it's a much better idea to look not at what
will happen, but at what might happen—at the “critical
uncertainties” that could have an impact on what you choose to do next,
and to optimize your organization’s position in case any one—or some
unpredictable combination—of these does occur.
Scenario
planning involves researching the impactful potentials in the
meaningfully distant future and creating fully realized images,
scripted as scenarios that anyone in the organization can understand
and work from, of how your organization thrives, if any or some of
these critical uncertainties comes to pass.
Sara
K. Schneider, Ph.D. & Associates' scenario-planning method
additionally involves using rehearsal as a thinking paradigm, getting at the relational,
organizational, and value-laden realities that fleshing a reality out
can provide. The method is a powerful means of bringing stakeholders at
all levels into the most challenging facts of ownership of the process
of planning for and bringing about change. It is useful in times of
“burning-platform” decision-making, and yet has wide-ranging impact in
how an organization considers and communicates to itself and to its
constituencies who it is, how it got that way, and where it's going.
So what does this look like in
practice?
Bringing together
experts on identity in America, Sara K. Schneider co-facilitated a
philanthropy’s research process and the stakeholder dialogue about the
impact globalization would have on its programs and strategy.
Following a concentrated retreat process, she authored three
alternative narrative scenarios about the “future of identity,
community, and belonging” in America, which helped the philanthropy
re-define its strategy and program offerings for unaffiliated young
adults in its identity group.
The
scenarios took the form of informal letters of advice to an influential
figure
trying to make a difference in how North Americans construct or use
their identities for change in the world. The addressee and the project
framing each of these fictive letters indicated the kinds of powers
that drove action in each scenario.
In Scenario 1, “I choose my own
family, thank you very much,”
Communities of Common Interest, fostered by the Internet, permitted
similarly identified religious and spiritual groups to “congregate” and
“heartfully affiliate” online.
In Scenario 2, “We’re like best
friends, but, no, we’ve never met,” technology drove identity for North
Americans. People were more concerned with being continuously on-call,
with their ability
to “play” in multiple places and times simultaneously, than with
relating to those in their immediate environs.
In Scenario 3, “Shouting
prophecies or whispering in Babylon,” the most
powerful forces were consolidated and corporately defined power, which
was interrupted by vibrant, threatening, young religious activity
erupting
publicly at the margins of society.
Not meant to be
realistic, the scenarios were instead intended to provide a relatively
naturalistic container for an
analysis of identity, community, and belonging that would foster
high-quality strategic thinking. The reader was invited to consider
some
of the leverage points in each letter—which were not necessarily the
same ones as those the fictive author of the letter identified—and to
offer for
discussion in his or her communities alternative interpretations and
strategies.
These scenarios were
used to help the philanthropy deepen its thinking—incorporating all the expertise around
the retreat table—and plan its future programs.
Contact
Sara K. Schneider
to discuss your projected scenario
planning process.
sks@thinkingdr.com
312.593.2345
All
materials © Sara K. Schneider 2008
