Service Design Tools
Scenario Planning
Scenario planning helps organizations navigate uncertainty by creating multiple plausible future narratives. Instead of predicting a single future, develop 3-4 distinct scenarios. These scenarios act as lenses for testing strategies and finding robust actions that work across various futures.
Duration
8 hours
Group Size
8-12
Category
Service Design Tools
Difficulty
Easy
- Develop plausible future scenarios to bound uncertainty.
- Challenge mental models and expand thinking about possibilities.
- Create early warning systems for emerging futures.
- Test strategy robustness across different conditions.
- Build organizational capacity for strategic conversation about the future.
- Identify no-regret actions that work across scenarios.
- Completed scenario planning exercise.
- Developed multiple future scenarios.
- Strategic preparation for various futures.
Before the workshop:
During the workshop:
Common pitfalls:
Follow-up actions:
Success factors:
- Have participants complete environmental scanning.
- Share relevant research and trend reports.
- Interview thought leaders, if possible.
- Prepare a fact base on key uncertainties.
During the workshop:
- Maintain creative tension between plausibility and challenge. It's easy for a scenario to become the 'official future' - prevent this.
- Ensure all scenarios are equally developed.
- Use immersive techniques (artifacts, role-play) to bring scenarios to life.
- Guard against probability discussions; all scenarios are plausible.
Common pitfalls:
- Scenarios are too similar (not enough stretch).
- Participants project the present into the future (insufficient change).
- Probability debates derail the process.
- Over-quantification loses narrative power.
- Scenarios are not connected to strategic decisions.
Follow-up actions:
- Create a scenario communication package.
- Integrate scenarios into the strategic planning process.
- Establish a scenario monitoring dashboard.
- Run wind-tunneling sessions for major decisions.
- Update scenarios annually.
Success factors:
- Senior leadership engagement throughout.
- A diverse, creative participant group.
- Balance between analysis and imagination.
- A clear connection to strategic decisions.
- Organizational commitment to use the scenarios.
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