As stories, of course some scenarios might depict highly surprising, unlikely or unorthodox futures, but they work best when they represent futures and underlying building blocks of trends and drivers that aren’t so unthinkable that they can easily be dismissed. If you want to stretch the definition of plausibility (and we often do), it’s important

You think that because you understand ‘one’ that you must, therefore, understand ‘two’ because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand ‘and’. DONELLA MEADOWS1

The intent of How to Future is to provide a way of looking at prospective problems, questions or challenges that, over time, becomes ingrained as a useful method for considering what could be. Futuring isn’t a once a year or a few times per quarter event; it’s an always-on way of thinking about what’s next, with a dimension of nimbleness and

Horizon 1, possibly some disruptions in economics, and expanding environmental or health challenges. Horizon 2 is where real uncertainties emerge and fringe possibilities start to surface and materialize, suggesting different pathways or a forking of change that could be important or useful to your scoping question.

For our purposes, we look at scenarios as a means of depicting a ‘slice’ or portion of a future. To be useful, scenarios should be plausible in the sense of not being so exotic that they’re unthinkable or alienate the audience to the point of rejection (note that ‘unimaginable for the organization’s current mission’ shouldn’t be a criterion for

but the key elements of the narrative are expressed here, establishing a problem, an action, relevant details about the world, and a resolution. Not all scenarios will express a resolution, but in this case we were bringing the ‘official’ activity in the story to a close.

‘Your utopia is always somebody else’s dystopia.’ The offered narratives are made to feel universal, but points of view are relative. The debate is a proxy for support of commercial or political platforms. The choice is: ‘Are you with us or against us?’

The sense-making phase is about moving from noise to insight.

Figure 1.1 details The details of the different levels are as below: Anticipate: Prediction, early warning, quantification, identification of risk and opportunity. The question is, ‘What can we expect from X in the next five years’? Envision: Exploring how current trends and new possibilities might shape what comes next. The question is, ‘What