Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation

direct instructions, but by using scenarios to set the context within which decisions are made down the line.

What the scenarios did was to enable Shell's manufacturing people to be more perceptive, appreciate events as part of a pattern they recoqttised, and so appreciate their implications. As

techniques we formerly used" (Benard 1980). Better quality thinhinq about the future became the second objective of scenario-based planning.

make do with anything less. They are fully aware that if the quality of a strategic decision has been whittled down to one single indicator, important knowledge about thefundamental uncertainty in the project has been filtered out. In this way the first objective of scenario-based

number. The aim is to develop projects that are likely to have positive returns under any of the scenarios. The

at its core an entirely different central idea. This type of scenario-based planning relies not on probability but on causality. As such it appeals more to the intuitive needs of the typical decision makers in their search for enhanced understanding of the changing structures in society. Shell,one of the pioneers of scenario analysis,

of oil. So planners had to consider what was predictable and what was fundamentally uncertain in the price of oil. That meant they had to examine what drives oil price, and, therefore, the whole question of supply and demand.

achieved. Forecasting produces answers, but scenario-based planning had made people ask the crucial questions.

The distinguishing feature of the scenario culture is that it has invested in assumptions, values and mental models. Tools and techniques are secondary. However sophisticated the tools, if there is no significant effect on assumptions, values and mental models, people will quickly fall back into the old habit of asking "Tell me what will happe