Scenario planning
Featured in the Knowledge Management training manual
By Mike Bagshaw & Paul Phillips
Category: Management
Credit price: 3 download credits (Single user)
Scenario planning is a technique for raising decision-makers’ awareness of several plausible and possible futures. The technique consists of making a consistent story about the future outcome of existing trends and paradigms. When the scenario process is successfully implemented in an organisation, it enables organisational learning, making the organisation more adaptable to change. Royal Dutch/Shell pioneered scenario planning in the 1970s. It is now recognised as a fundamental tool for thinking strategically about the future. Today, organisations and industries are facing tremendous structural change, together with uncertainty and decisions with huge opportunities and risks. Anticipating the future in this volatile environment calls for more than rational analysis: it also demands creativity, insight and intuition.
You begin this training activity by introducing the concept of scenario planning as a powerful tool for anticipating possible futures and what we need to do to be prepared for those futures. A light-hearted session reveals how key players in industry and commerce have made wrong predictions in the past. You go on to facilitate a scenario planning exercise which lasts for over two hours and incorporates a summary session at the end.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to show participants how they can use their existing knowledge, combined with creativity and group dialogue to generate plausible future scenarios, and what they can do to prepare for these possible futures.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 12 |
| Typical Duration: | 03:35:00 |
| No of Pages: | 18 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Additional resources: Sticks of glue, Several pairs of scissors.
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers on leadership programmes, strategy development workshops and creative thinking courses. It can also be used on assessment and development centres that focus on competencies with a strategic focus.
Download the training activity, Scenario planning as featured in the Fenman training manual; Knowledge Management