Futures Thinking and Scenario Planning

See above for an embedded Linkedin post I made 3 weeks back when I co-organised a Futures Thinking and Scenarios Planning workshop for aspiring Malay/Muslim community leaders as part of my role as Lead of the Future Leaders initiative (a Mendaki Club signature programme). We invited a former MClub president who is a futures thinking and scenarios planning practitioner, an academic from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) and a pracademic who has her own social enterprises and is a research fellow with LKYSPP. I have always been curious about the subject matter but never really had a chance to pick it up properly and after this session, I was tempted to book the Masterclass at LKYSPP. In fact, I am also going for a Public Sector gig with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (or MUIS) sometime from July to September this year and there is a potential to look into Futures Thinking and Scenarios Planning officially and apply it there/then.

The other great thing about the event is that my team received a deck of cards from our friends at LKYSPP which we used to engage our participants with. I have actually used it to initiate conversations with some students whom I am coaching academically to develop their maturity of thought. I think it is a really good tool to have for such purposes and it was also pretty easy to use/play.

from Azree's handouts

Selamat, Rahmat, Nikmat

From Farah Sanwari's slides

Value of Futures Thinking

As a follow-up to my 101 to FT & SP, I decided to look for e-books and audiobooks about the concepts. I have started on one by Chermack and I think it is deserving of recommendation, especially to others who are keen to learn more too. 

Available at NLB

I learnt that one of the Scenarios Planning gurus is Pierre Wack from Shell and many others have continued the SP work/study leading to many useful frameworks to think about and prepare for the future. However, there are no organisations or official courses that focus only on scenario planning but there are some which emphasise futures thinking so this book is particularly helpful to understand SP. I am only 40% through the audiobook and have taken down some notes where possible and some names to research deeper into later.

Books to read:

1. Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation by Kees van der Heijden
2. Scenario Planning: A Field Guide to the Future by Woody Wade
3. Creating Better Futures: Scenario Planning as a Tool for a Better Tomorrow by James A. Ogilvy  [from Global Business Network (GBN), a consulting company]
4. The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World by Peter Scwartz

Steps from The Art of the Long View 

1. Identify focal issue or decision
2. Key forces in local environment
3. Driving forces
4. Rank by importance and uncertainty
5. Selecting scenario logics
6. Flushing out the scenarios
7. Implications
8. Selection of leading indicators and signposts

Remember the reality of TUNA 

• Turbulence
• Uncertainty
• Novelty
• Ambiguity

The images below can help you see how some of the visual aids help in the understanding and application of FT and SP:

I will update in a future post about my further explorations in this field (if any). I will also share if there are any progress in using it in class or in conversations with other youth to improve our community or society and make us more future ready.