scenarios

Foresight fuels product and brand innovation

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You can't innovate in a vacuum. Foresight opens new space for exploring change and discovering opportunities.

In product innovation, it’s essential to look beyond the boundaries of the current market for your products. You need to explore at least five or ten years into the future for fresh insights. And you need to test your assumptions about the marketplace and how it's changing. 

In brand innovation, a futures view tests assumptions about emerging change in values, attitudes, lifestyles, and consumption. It helps you fine tune your understanding of how consumers will understand and value a brand.

Without those enhanced views, you risk misunderstanding the patterns of change and missing opportunities. And you raise the risk of product failure or a mis-fire in marketing or brand development. 

What you can do

For the most robust innovation efforts, build foresight into your work. Innovation teams should discuss leading-edge change and where it may steer the marketplace. Making future outcomes explicit sharpens the view of emerging needs and opportunities.

A baseline environmental scan of the most critical forces and trends shaping society will fuel a team's creative thinking and fortify its understanding of the marketplace.

Scenarios help you test product/service ideas against a clearer view of the future.

Those are just two foresight tools among many that will enhance and enrich your innovation processes.

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You probably need a futurist to help, let me know. jbmahaffie@leadingfuturists.biz and 202-271-0444.

The ridiculous scenario

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"Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous"
— Dator's Law, Futurist Jim Dator, University of Hawaii Manoa, [Source] 

Jim Dator says that to be useful, a statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous. But we fight the ridiculous trying to be responsbile thinkers about the future. 

"Don't waste time, that's crazy."

"Let's not get off track here."

"Oh, here we go, this is where the rubber hits the sky!" 

Of course, the ridiculous future is not often what we end up with. So why bother with it? To provoke better insights and action, we have to stretch our thinking. Rather than steer clear of an at-first-ridiculous idea, you should embrace it and play with it.

Until you’ve explored things that at first blush are “impossible” or “can’t ever happen” you haven’t explored the full landscape of meaningful, impactful change. The Wright Brothers told a incredulous world, after all, that humans were going to fly.

An example of a ridiculous scenario

“What if there was zero packaging?” We surely can’t manage unpackaged orange juice. But the concept lets you wonder about a future with far less packaging. Or a system for the containers we use with food and other products to be permanent and reusable. Or a marketplace in which packaging is no longer thought of as a nuisance and waste, but as an investment. So the ridiculous idea bears fruit. And it does so by leaping past thoughts of small-scale changes to show the potential for more transformational ones.

So take this as a cautionary to be sure we don’t too readily only see continuity, that we don’t miss significant threats and opportunities, that we don’t fail to explore the full landscape of possibility. 

NOTE: For more on scenarios, see: Why We Need Scenarios to Be Ready for the Future.

A previous post is similar: “the Unspoken Scenario”. Another is, “Come over to the dark side.” In those analyses, the missing scenarios are “unspoken”–perhaps unspeakable or “dark”. But the missing scenario can also be a wildly positive view of the future. 

You can’t be what you can’t see

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"If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way."
–Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and playwright

"You can't be what you can't see," attributed to Marian Wright Edelman, American civil rights activist, and others.

"To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it–well, that's a way of bringing the said thing into being" –Iff, the Water Genie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie

Seamus Heaney, Marian Wright Edelman, and Salman Rushdie's Water Genie, quoted above, remind us that until people have a name for something, understand the change it represents, and recognize it as desireable, they have trouble accepting it and taking steps to get there.

To be able to describe not just changes, but outcomes, is essential to progress. Too often, the visionaries among us understand, but the stakeholders we face do not, they can't see it, and don't have the words with which to talk about it.

In foresight, we use scenarios to describe potential futures and often to identify desired outcomes. The more specific and clear we can be about the potential future, the better we are able to communicate with others about it, and identify paths forward. The first step is to articulate the future: you can't be what you can't see.

5 foresight steps for dealing with community resistance to change

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MainStreetNovelI recently met a couple who are leaders in their small Southern US town. They are not elected leaders. They are self-driven change makers. They are working hard and spending their own money to improve the town. They have planted thousands of flowers and created a festival to build town pride and draw visitors. They are planning new spaces for incubating creativity and businesses.

Their efforts reminded me of Carol Milford, the heroine in Sinclair Lewis' Main Street. She wanted to bring culture and sophistication to her adopted town. Like Carol Milford, my friends face tradition-minded, suspicious townspeople who don't understand their motives or vision for the community.

They are working for a better future for everyone, so why the pushback?

It's likely a combination of things. People are unsure or suspicious of the changes. Their instinct is it's better to have what you know than to chance it on unclear and outlandish new ideas. They don't know or share the vision of the couple who are leading change. So what do my friends need to do?

5 ways foresight can help

  1. Sell their vision better. This means bringing clarity to their ideas about change and their motivations for pressing for it. They do so while respecting and celebrating the town's legacies, and the people who are a part of those. Appreciative inquiry is a technique for working with groups that starts with acknowledging strengths and positive legacies. It offers a starting point for a community (or organization) seeking to move forward cooperatively.
  2. Join with stakeholders to explore a positive future. This means not claiming to have all the answers. Instead, invite community members to help forge plans. Community members with the strongest sense of "ownership" of the town should be allies, not opponents. Giving them participation in the process preserves their ownership. Some thoughts on dealing with people whose thinking is stuck in the present (or past) are here: "When only you see the future." Also, "difficult history" may be part of what my friends face in their town. See: "How to break free of difficult history."
  3. Start the conversation by sharing assumptions about the future. Have participants in visioning meetings share their thoughts on "In 2027, I believe that ______________" . That view is at least 10 years in the future. Why? because that will help people jump past their immediate concerns and "today" objections. Probing this question does two things. 1). It gets the juices flowing, getting everyone's head in the future. 2). It surfaces assumptions about the future that we all carry and operate on whether we've told each other them or not. Sometimes the inability to move forward will be rooted in unexamined assumptions about the future. See: "In 20xx I believe that ________"
  4. Do some unencumbered thinking. With stakeholders, explore the question: "What would we build today if none of this existed?" You don't do this because you plan to blot out everything and start over. This discussion allows people to imagine things not from the perspective of rigid, existing barriers that would make it hard to acheive them, but rather, from the point of view of what would be best. See also: "The clean slate scenario".  
  5. Build a clear vision of a desired future. Create 10- or 20-year views into the future. These scenarios could include stories about "what if we don't change" as well as views of positive futures. You can develop these scenarios with people from across the community. The scenarios will bring out clear and vivid images of the future. An artist's renderings of the future can further showcase the new ideas and enourage feedback. See also: "Why we need scenarios to be ready for the future".

Entering into processes like this is scary. But my new friends show only signs of excitement about it. They will make an even greater difference going forward, armed with some of the tools of foresight.

If you are working in a community or organization with these sorts of challenges, I can help you develop and lead a process to get further, more smoothly. Let me know if I can help: jbmahaffie@leadingfuturists.biz and 202-271-0444.

When only you see the future

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You are intuitive, a trend-spotter, comfortable with conjecture, ready to explore something uncertain–the future. Right?

Other people you have to deal with are fact-minded, narrowly-focused, prefer what is knowable, and are focused on what they are doing right now. Sound familiar? Because you are talking about the future, maybe they think you are crazy and "just make things up."

So now you've got a problem. They don't get what you're saying or doing, or don't believe in it, or they fear it.

What can you do?

Knowing this problem exists is a big part of coping. It's not sufficient, nor useful to assume others are stupid, or actually tell them they are stupid. It's best to work with their perspectives and the reasons for their narrower focus. They are mired in the present, and not practiced at thinking about things that haven't yet happened.

Your goal should be to help people raise their eyes up to a further horizon, to open their thinking. Show them some new ways to understand things. Find ways to bring ideas about the future alive for them in images and words. Tell stories about what could be, but make sure they are vivid and show the changes that matter. Much of the work of helping people explore the future is simply doing this.

Scenarios are a great tool to use. See: Why we need scenarios to be ready for the future and much more at the tag "Scenarios".

I can help you! Let me know if you'd like to hear more, or if I can help build a program for you and your organization. Email Me or call 202-271-0444.

Why we need scenarios to be ready for the future

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No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be…This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking 

–Isaac Asimov, Asimov on Science Fiction 1981

Organizations have to consider outside forces and trends as they build their strategies. But in most, too few people spend time thinking about how the future will shape the organization. Not enough of the knowledge and ideas of the organization finds its place in strategy. Leading firms use scenarios to solve these problems.

A science fictional way of thinking

Scenarios answer Asimov’s call for a “science fictional way of thinking”. They ask, “What if?” They are stories we build about future possibilities. The stories let us test and explore future risks and opportunities. 

The scenario building process draws out the insight of a team and helps make future challenges and opportunities clearer and more compelling. It gives participants a shared view of future possibilities. That view enriches their day-to-day work and strategic thinking.

We can use scenarios to think through potential decisions about strategy. The scenarios also become a tool for sharing strategic thinking with others. 

Most organizations have a good idea what they intend to do in the next few years. But that view can weaken their sense of more transformational change and bigger opportunities further out. Taking a look ten or even more years out lets us imagine bigger change. Then we can step back to today to understand what to do about it. 

The further into the future we look, the less certain we are about what will happen. But also, the further out we look the more our decisions today have the power to shape change and opportunity. 

This diagram shows how using scenarios can help us avoid just pursuing an “official” future. Official futures usually assume continuity. They tend to ignore both new threats and opportunities. Good foresight, exploring alternate scenarios, builds and maintains a broader view of what’s possible. 

Cone of uncertainty

Scenario building is a shared, immersive activity

The power of scenario building is in how it gets people to immerse themselves in the future. Working on scenarios leaves them no choice but to think both broadly and concretely about the future.

Once people have had the scenario-building experience, they have new ideas and places to go in their heads. They’ve got a much richer view of the future. They have a new mental habit–to think about alternative futures, not accepting that there’s some inevitable future out there. They should, and usually do, have a sense of empowerment. They discover there are parts of their future they can shape, starting now.

By the way, part of my practice is helping teams use scenarios. So, to be clear, I not only want you to do this, I’d love to help. We build scenario programs for all sorts of organizations. Here’s a page describing our support for workforce futures explorations.

Let me know if I can help you: jbmahaffie@leadingfuturists.biz and 202-271-0444.

Some of my other posts on scenarios:

The future in the small thing

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WhenDoesChangeMatter"Four percent," the senior agency leader said. And that stopped the roll forward of an enthusiastic riff by my futurist colleague standing at the front of the room, and stilled the nodding heads of the already-converted who'd decided this was all cool stuff. 

We had been discussing what is sometines called "the new agriculture," niche farming for local consumption: small, specialty crop production sold, mostly, at nearby farm stands and gourmet groceries, and the emergence of urban rooftop farming in the mix. 

"Sorry?" the futurist said.

"It's four percent, that's it. This new agriculture is only four percent of the state's total agricutural production." I looked at the man. I realized that he was top brass at the state's department of agriculture.

This was a moment to assert the importance of the small changes coming in from the margins, and the potential for what is so far only a fringe development to not only grow in importance, but to influence the mainstream (the 96% of agriculture, in this case).

A futurist has a fascination with what happens on the margins, because that, so often, is where change comes from. Something small, and sometimes too small to catch the notice of an executive, or to pass muster as a trend that matters, may be the thing of most interest to the futurist.

And so we bide our time, asserting the importance of curious new developments, until our audiences begin to feel the reality of those things. We regularly want to burst out with, when suddenly people "discover" some trend, "That's what I've been telling you for nine years!" Our seeds need to wait for conditions to be right to sprout, unless we can nuture those conditions sooner.

And we can. There are ways to make the case for change, earlier. 

For the grounded-in-today's-reality executive, a clearer view of the future as an outcome makes the difference. The thin wedge of change which we may detect now in a fringe trend or "four percent" phenomenon could be the mainstream reality of 2025. Painting a picture of that future year will show how things could play out, in effect, previewing the 4% becoming 40% or 50% or 60%.

To grapple with that possibility, we need to take the "four percent" and try it out as 60%. We need to paint a full picture of the "what if" outcome that would represent. And we need to do it together. It's not enough for the "crazy futurist" to imagine alone. It's far better for a group in an organization to put their heads into the future and tell each other the story of what's possible. That's why building scenarios–stories of the future told as if it has happened–is so powerful. Ant it's most powerful when it's done by a group of colleagues. Find ways to really get you and your colleagues' heads in the future, to deepen the view and the sense of outcomes that are out there. That will make the distant hints of change into something useful–early awareness of the potential future.

Some further insights:

Thoughts on the power of scenarios: Why I love introducing scenario thinking to people 

Examples of scenarios: Exploring the Future for Education: Three Scenarios for 2025

 

Exploring the Future for Education: Three Scenarios for 2025

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Exploring the Future for Education: Three Scenarios for 2025 is the second piece I've done for the World Innovation Summit for Education's online news and idea site, WISE Ed.Review. My focus for them is on clear future views of what's possible and desirable in education in our future.

More to come!

Six things fiction writing taught me about foresight

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI have posted at johnmahaffie.com, the inverse of this theme: Six things studying the future has taught me about fiction writing

I’ve spent a couple of years deep in the ranks of amateur novelists, working on a couple of novels, which I will confess, though I am a futurist, are set in the past, one in 1916, and one in the 1970s. I am still learning the basics by writing fiction every day, but doing it has already paid off for my work as a futurist. How? Several ways.

1. The parts of the story not told
In building a body of work for a futures project, I learn a lot, and think a lot, and develop a lot of ideas. I collect lots of information. I begin to know the “whole” future that my client faces, or at least have a large body of conjecture about it. But like the readers of a novel, my clients don’t want to know everything about the future, just the part that matters and that they can act on. So, overall, what I discovered in writing my novels is, don’t put something in just because you thought of it and researched it, and went some trouble to create it. That’s not your reader’s, or your client’s problem.

2. Things are complicated
Reinforcing the lesson of foresight, and one that I can benefit from learning, relearning, and building upon, is that human systems are complex: there’s never just one cause for a change, the swirl of forces large and small shape and reshape the destiny of people, families, towns, cities, societies, humankind. In building stories about people, you get a stronger sense of that, it’s the combination of forces that create change.

3. Point of view matters
Writers have to work out the point of view, and the voice they use to get across their stories. In foresight, getting the story told, or the forecast communicated, or the call to action made, means understanding who you are exploring the future for, what’s in their heads, and what needs to be in their heads. We spend a lot of time working out what future to focus on, how to frame ideas about change, and whose interests we have in mind in doing so. The first acts of a foresight initiative involve answering the question, “What future?

4. What’s worth exploring is change
There’s not much for the futurist to do in exploring the present, other folks are far more expert at that. Our value is in looking at change and the intersections of different kinds of change. In fiction, it’s also change that matters. If a character doesn’t change, if there are no points of no return, if nothing really happens, you’ve set a scene but not told a story. In foresight, if you get caught up in the discovery of what’s going on now, you may end up a little smarter, but it’s much more valuable to get at vital changes, what they mean, and how things could turn out.

5. Show don’t tell
Good futures work is about conveying insights and wisdom, but also about explaining, supporting, and giving examples. So like the writer admonished to “show, don’t tell,” in communicating about the future, examples and specifics and the concrete do better work than generalities. Concepts and new framings are powerful, but without the support of a “such as,” or “for example” the listener or reader may not get or accept what you are talking about.

6. Story telling is the thing
Futures work includes telling stories, often those are scenarios–narratives of the future. And the more they work as stories, the better a job they do in getting ideas about the future across to people. The scenarios I’ve worked on lately are better stories, with greater attention to real human lives, ideas, and reactions. Too much of my work in the past played out technologies for technologies’ sake, at the expense of true, deep insights on people. It’s not that I didn’t know the importance of people in futures stories, it’s just that I’ve gained strength in know how to focus on that side.

Image: rahego, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License

Pollyanna had the right idea

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In a controlled study, researchers found people routinely willing to swap similar pens with others, but less willing to exchange lottery tickets. The reason? The lottery ticket in your hand has a potential future value which may—you don’t know—exceed that of another ticket. You don’t want to swap away a ticket that might turn out to be the winner. This happens even if the subjects of the experiment are reminded that probability shows either ticket has an equal likelihood of being a winner.

With pens, you are not likely to come out behind. A pen’s a pen, and neither your pen nor the other guy’s is the key to a future fortune. This shows how potential future regret shapes our decisions in the present.

So we have a tendency to anticipate having regret in the future. That means regret is not only a back-facing emotion, it also shapes our view forward, and so it shapes our future. The regret we feel can be about a missed future chance, an anticipation of failure, or an expectation that we will come up short in how we handle change.

The antonym of regret is satisfaction, and I would argue that anticipated satisfaction can be a powerful motivator for the future. But we have to allow ourselves to proceed with confidence armed with a vision of a positive future. That means that positive scenarios of our future are a strong motivator.

There’s not likely to be much of an outcome if you go around expecting the worse, starting up with your regret even before things have transpired. This sort of sour approach to the present and the future is nothing but destructive. In my view, Pollyanna had it about right—we need a positive outlook and we can help build that with a focus on the future that gets us to positive ideas about the future. Along the way exploring people’s fears, but also their hopes about the future will help the cause.

See also a recent Time piece, “The Optimism Bias” on how we have an optimism bias and why we should.

I’ve also weighed in before on hope, optimism, and the future:

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