Streamline Training & Documentation: Personal Scenario Planning

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Personal Scenario Planning

The August 2009 issue of Wired has a compact graphic article by Peter Schwartz on how one can apply scenario planning to one's own career or other personal issue.

Schwartz outlines the scenario planning process by working through an example in which an aerospace engineer gets the process started by deciding that the question in need of investigation is "How can I future-proof my career over the next five years?"

Schwartz then outlines the five steps in the process:

List driving forces.

What variables, trends, and events could change the aerospace industry? Which are fairly certain? Which are uncertain? Which are the two most important uncertainties?

Using the two most important uncertainties, make a scenario grid showing four possible futures.

Imagine possible futures and write them up like news stories.

What could happen over the next five years?

Brainstorm implications. Then devise suitable strategies and tactics for coping with each of the futures you've imagined.

Track indicators so that you recognize when a particular future is emerging.

Schwartz closes by noting that if none of the futures you've imagined comes true, "You can always reevaluate you sense of the forces at play and rework the grid to reflect reality more accurately."

###

Labels: Decision-making, Learning organization, Strategy, Systems thinking

<< Home