Finding Insights & Taking Action

Written By WKF

The most common question we get asked: So we envisioned the future, now what?

Now, we identify insights and take action…

First, remember, strategic foresight works best when you can shift from day-to-day firefighting to more expansive thinking about what's ahead. You already know where you want to go; the question is what forces might help or hinder that journey. By focusing scenario learnings on future risks and opportunities, you give permission to think beyond today's urgent tasks while staying anchored to the strategic priorities that matter.

Gaining Insights

  1. For each scenario, consider: How will your strategy hold up if this future were to occur? What are the opportunities and risks in the scenario?
    → Pro Tip: View this future from your stakeholders’ perspectives to make the results of this exercise even stronger: What are their challenges in this future? What makes their day better or life easier?

  2. Review the risks and opportunities you came up with for each scenario. What common themes do you see? What opportunities or risks are present across multiple scenarios?

Taking Action

Moving from insights to action means making smart, practical decisions that enhance resiliency and ensure you’re moving in a desired direction:

  1. Start with the commonalities: If a risk or opportunity appears in most of your scenarios, pay attention, these are likely to matter regardless of how the future unfolds.

  2. Where can you test small and fail fast? Pick one or two small changes you can implement now to better position yourself for multiple future possibilities. Think pilots, not months-long efforts here. Experiment and pay attention to what you learn.

  3. Is there a signal growth that would tell you a scenario is starting to unfold? Create a simple monitoring system so you're not caught off guard.

  4. What would need to happen for your most desired scenario to come true? What role could you play in making it more likely? (Stay tuned, we'll be covering our favorite tool for this kind of strategic thinking in our next session.)

Miss part of the series? Check out the previous installments below:
Part 1: The Art of the Focal Question
Part 2: Expanding Perspective for Better Foresight
Part 3: Finding Patterns that Matter
Part 4: Scenario Creation, Step by Step

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Scenario Creation, Step by Step