-- a university of arizona
course on methods and approaches for studying the future
There
are four parts to this summary -- 1) general and probably familiar approaches,
2) generally unfamiliar approaches, 3) my basic approach as a checklist, and 4)
a futures toolbox. Also talk a look at a what others
have learned about studying the future and my
own thoughts on what I have learned.
1. Familiar Approaches
Follow Innovation
Everything has its
time. When it is time to innovate to address a new problem or issue, someone
will do it. Watch how this is done for ideas.
Using Your Intuition
Have you used the words:
"gut feeling", "a little bird told me", "I had
a feeling", "hunch", "sixth sense", "empathy",
"grasping complex relationships", or "looking at someone
and have them look back"
Watching Trends
AND Disruptions of Trends
There are long term
and short term trends and they interact. Stand back and look at the big
picture but don't read too much into current trends. New and different times
suggest a disruption of familiar trends.
2. Possibly Unfamiliar
Approaches
Chaotic behavior
and organizations
Chaos may be more
ordered than we think and too much organization is confining. Chaordic
organizations are marked by flexibility, innovation, adaptability and
inclusiveness.
Dealing with
uncertainty, ignorance, and change.
One cannot predict
the future! Therefore we have to learn to deal with change and uncertainty,
and most importantly to learn to deal with what we don't know (including
how to know when we don't know it).
Scenarios
and images to broaden the possibilities
Scenarios are like
a "scene" in the theater - they weave the necessary and the
unnecessary along with what is known and what is fantasy into different
settings. Good products might produce 4 or so different scenarios of the
future but you cannot tell which is more likely or desirable because of
the cleaver designs. However, you learn a great deal about the topic during
this process - which is the purpose of scenarios.
3. My Basic Approach
and Checklist
Use a multi-step
process every time - omit certain steps only if unnecessary for the project
scale
- Research an issue
from multiple perspectives and review existing knowledge to gain historical
context
- Recognize the few
but significant paradigm shifts underway - both receding and advancing
- Understand major
emerging and receding trends, and their clustering into driving forces
for change
- Build (a few) scenarios
to better understand how to react to combinations of events
- Make conclusions
that can be modified, are flexible, and allow for wild card events
- Recognize times
change and revisiting conclusions developed in another situation is a
worthwhile effort
- Keep it simple,
share results in a format and within a context familiar to your audience
4. The Futures Toolbox
and How to Use It
What do futurists
do and what are they like?
- Anticipate change
and react to it.
- Part historian,
part scientist, part feet on ground part feet in air.
- Interest in a broad
range of subjects, some curiosity, and a sense of the "big picture"
- Mostly integrator
with sense of the whole and comfortable with uncertainty.
What is in
the toolbox of techniques?
- It is more than
forecasting, predicting, or palm reading.
- Tools are drawn
from many disciplines - pick the ones that fit the job at hand.
- Examples: context
setting research, assessments, possible wild cards, focus groups, trend
and scenario analysis.
Reviewing
a good approach to study the future?
- Develop anticipatory
skills and maintain awareness of current and potential changes
- Know what to look
for and separating important events from noise
- Use a radar approach
rather than a vacuum cleaner approach to data gathering
- Know what tools
are available and when to use them and when not to use them
- Prepare to react
early to new changes while allowing for flexibility for error as more
is learned
- Don't place undue
trust in experts or in non-experts (or yourself)
- Watch out for
the bandwagon effect (safety in numbers ) or group think (fear of standing
out)
- Be wary of unstated
assumptions or simplistic statements; the seemingly obvious may not be
right
- Implement foresight
knowledge into your daily activities so you become an "automated
futurist"