Scenario Creation, Step by Step
You’ve clarified your focal question, completed research, and identified the patterns shaping change. That foundation sets you up for the next step, scenario planning; your opportunity to bring the future to life as a set of stories that challenge assumptions and expand strategic thinking.
“Scenario planning helps you explore multiple plausible futures (rather than trying to predict the future) so you can stress-test your decisions, uncover risk and opportunities, and build a strategy that’s resilient and adaptable.” ~ Amy Webb
With this in mind, it’s important that your scenarios explore a breadth of future possibilities. This can seem daunting, but fortunately there are a number of methodologies that help with this. Our favorite is Jim Dator’s Four Futures approach:
Growth: More of the same, but bigger.
Discipline: Constraint, regulation, or collective restraint in response to crisis, scarcity, or ecological limits.
Collapse: Systems break down.
Transformation: Everything changes. (This can be hopeful or chaotic, and it’s always unexpected.)
As you craft your scenarios, remember that this isn’t about prediction, it’s about creating narratives that combine data, creativity and imagination to help readers experience possible futures.
Choose your critical uncertainties: Focus on 3-4 drivers, trends, technologies or behaviors that are both highly impactful and uncertain for the archetype.
Define the edges of each uncertainty by thinking in opposites or contrasts (e.g. centralized vs. decentralized power; high trust vs. deep mistrust, etc.).
Build your 4 scenarios: Imagine what life looks like in each archetype. Give each scenario a name, a vibe, and a storyline. Who thrives? Who struggles? What surprises you?
Gut check: Let your creativity lead, but anchor your worlds in the trends and drivers you’ve already identified.
Make them feel real: Bring each future to life with detail, what might a stakeholder say in this future? What might their day look like?
Start short. A paragraph or two per scenario is plenty to get going.
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