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Tag Archives: futures

3 Steps For Plotting Your Personal Future In An Uncertain World

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by Venessa Miemis in Uncategorized

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futures, personal development

1682043-poster-1280-future1-1024x576

this article originally appeared in FastCoExist

In today’s accelerating world of work, it’s easy to get distracted by the million shiny objects vying for our attention. All too often, we spend our time responding to the latest urgent priority, and forget who we are and what really matters to us. A sense of personal or professional mission fades, and our passion and potential goes dormant.

However, forward-focused people and organizations realize that a happy, productive workplace exists only when everyone is aware of their gifts and how to best align their contribution with a larger shared purpose.

 A happy, productive workplace exists only when everyone is aware of their gifts and how to best align their contribution with a larger shared purpose.

Below is a three-phase process to help get reconnected to your motivations, the unique value you offer the world, and a vision for your own long-term trajectory. Cultivating this foresight practice at both the personal and organizational levels can be a powerful way to develop our greatest assets: ourselves.


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Open Foresight: A New Model for Public Futurism

29 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by Venessa Miemis in Uncategorized

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futures, projects

Screen-shot-2012-10-29-at-11.43.35-AM

Last year I was contacted by the Journal of Futures Studies with an invitation to contribute an essay in their special issue on the Communication of Foresight, a complication focused on the new communication and media strategies people are using to engage people in thinking and acting about the future.

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F-Suites for C-Suites: 4 Futures Thinking Toolkits To Help C-Suite Leaders Thrive in a World of Change

13 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by Venessa Miemis in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

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futures

Imagine your mind as a construct – a series of models, assumptions, biases, values, beliefs, memories, past hurts and joys, experiences, expectations, and blind spots.

It’s running a real-time simulation of the world 24/7, creating stories, scenarios, predictions of what could happen next and how a situation might play out. We run a cost/benefit analysis of the range of choices we could make, and then make decisions based on what we think will lead to our preferred outcomes.

This mind of ours is both a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, an open, creative and imaginative mind has the capacity to envision futures that at first glance seem impossible or absurd, but on second glance make you go “hmmmmm.” On the other, our minds are fantastic of filling us with fears, envisioning scenarios of what could go wrong, and ultimately paralyzing us from taking any action at all.

It’s easy to get trapped in our most comfortable assumptions and models. It feels safe and familiar in there, where the territory is predictable and we have reference points for understanding situations likely to be confronted in ‘the real world.’

The bad news is, we’re in transition. The world is changing. Things are moving, shifting, adapting, at an accelerating rate.  Comfortable and familiar mental models may feel safe, but pretty much leave us with our pants down when a new system or paradigm emerges that reframes “how things work.”

You’ll wonder why you didn’t see it coming.

The good news is, the mind is plastic, flexible and pliable. We ARE capable of expanding our thought architecture to accommodate the imagining of new models and “crazy ideas” that actually just might work.

The ecosystem around is alive and buzzing right now, ripe for an explosion of innovations and shifts that will transform how things function at a multitude of levels.

Who’s going to harness the opportunities first? And how is it done?

I decided to touch base with my colleague Frank Spencer, founder of the foresight and design consultancy, Kedge. I asked him to share his views on which futures thinking “suites” he’s found to be the most useful for C-Suite leaders committed to expanding their mental horizons in order to pioneer new ground.

Below are 4 he believes should be in every leader’s toolbox:

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—
:: Internal Inquiry Suite ::

:: Internal Inquiry Suite ::

The Futures Thinking tools in this group not only give an individual or organization a glimpse into how they think about the future, but also help in getting past assumptions and biases so that they are open to alternative outcomes, potential risks, and hidden opportunities.

The star of this set is known as Causal Layered Analysis (CLA), a method for digging beneath the obvious facts and events that we all see on the “surface” of everyday life.

Layer 1 – THE “FACTS” (official unquestioned view of reality)

CLA begins by having the user write down the facts around an issue (ex. “The Stop Online Piracy Act [SOPA] seeks to put an end to the illegal activity surrounding the intellectual property of the entertainment industry by online file-sharing sites”.) This factual information (the first layer of CLA known as the “litany”) is then analyzed through 3 more layers, each addressing a deeper level of internal meaning that caused the litany to be constructed in its present state.

Layer 2 – THE “SYSTEM’ (social system/structure informing ‘reality’)

The level at which the user uncovers the structures and actors that are causing the litany to appear on the “surface” in its present form.

(ex. “The entertainment industry has a monetary interest in protecting their IP from piracy. The present system is set up in such a way that entertainers create a product or IP, and sell to consumers through various means of delivery such as CDs/DVDs or digital downloads via online stores such as iTunes. The internet creates a huge disruptor to this model, and government legislation is the means to police and protect the present global economic model.)

Layer 3 – THE “WORLDVIEW” (deeper unconsciously held assumptions)

The “worldview” that is creating this present systemic approach.

(ex. Government intervention is needed across sectors and domains in order to assure economic protection. Government and industry must partner in order to assure global growth and stability. 2-way monetary exchange of goods is the only means to job development and economic growth. Big government is good.)

Layer 4 – THE “MYTH & METAPHOR” (unconscious emotional narratives about reality)

The “myth and metaphor” layer that reveals the deep ideas that an individual or culture holds that are giving birth to any singular worldview. This level can be expressed in statements, pictures, imagery, or any other means that helps to unveil the deeper cosmology of the user.

(ex. Tribalism, scarcity, and fear are universal motivators of human activity. “Might makes right.” Power is the chief means to social change. The great law-giver. etc.)

With this model in mind, a CLA map might look something like this:

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Other tools in this suite include:
  • Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi), used to understand and inform personal and collective growth through internal modeling.
  • Theory U, a change management method that targets inner knowing and innovation in leadership, helping leaders break past unproductive patterns of behavior and realize future possibilities.
  • Action Inquiry, a tool to initiate progressive problem solving through understanding the underlying causes surrounding personal and organizational change, increasing the wider effectiveness of our present and future actions.
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—
:: Environmental Impact Suite ::
.

:: Environmental Impact Suite ::

Headlining this suite is a method called Futures Wheels, a means for envisioning the future implications of any critical issue, focal decision, or emerging trend. These implications are then used by leaders to inform strategy and action in an organization, creating a more robust and resilient outcome. Though the tool is not limited in the amount of implications that can be developed, most Futures Wheels exercises use 3 expanding levels – far enough out from the original trend or decision to get a good look at the possible risks and opportunities that could impact the organization.

Other tools in this suite include:

  • Organizational Culture Assessment (OCAI), a method for gauging the health of any organization’s internal culture and external connection.
  • STEEP and Environmental Scanning, a system for identifying the emerging trends and issues across the various driving forces, and categorizing them around patterns that indicate future possibilities.
  • VERGE is also an environmental scanning tool. Rather than focusing on the “point of origin” as is the case with STEEP (social, technological, environmental, economic, political), this tool scans the driving forces from the perspective of the “point of impact.” (i.e. how will trends and issues define the end-user.)
  • Probability/Impact Matrix is a tool that categorizes emerging trends as to their degree of probability and impact. For example, if a rising event has a fairly high degree of happening, and such an event would have a substantial impact, then a leader of company should make provisions for that event in their strategy.
—
—
:: Futures Mapping Suite ::



(image via http://cindyu.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/backcasting_allbox.png)

:: Futures Mapping Suite ::

One of the more popular tools in this suite is known as Backcasting. Through this method, strategic teams can begin at a preferred or aspirational future and work backwards over time to identify specific strategies that will be needed to support that future. In this way, leaders can clearly understand not only what strategies and actions will be needed, but also the time increments in which those strategies must be implemented or obtained.

Other tools in this suite include:

  • Metamatrix is a tool used to map the natural growth curves of any organizational vision, strategy, or product, highlighting points of breakthrough as well as breakdown. In this way, a map is developed for reaching preferred futures and uncovering new and untapped opportunities.
  • Migration Landscaping is like backcasting in reverse, and is useful in identifying the obstacles or points of contact for an organization’s journey toward a certain future outcome.
  • Systems Thinking has become very popular in many disciplines over the past 10-20 years, and for good reason: mapping a business or organizational system not only reveals why certain outcomes are occurring, but also allows the user to see which players and structures in the system can be added, deleted, or moved in order to change future outcomes.
—
—
:: Scenario Modeling Suite ::


(image via http://www.softwarebee.com/preview/scenario-planning-mba-19590.jpg)

:: Scenario Modeling Suite ::

One of the most popular methods associated with Futures Thinking is Scenario Planning & Development. In employing this tool, companies can understand how the future will “play out” under different emerging trends and alternative outcomes. With the well-informed stories of multiple futures in-hand, leaders can then make their strategies much more robust and adaptive, ensuring both surviving and thriving no matter which future unfolds.

Other tools in this suite include:

  • Trend Cards is one of the most popular methods with groups because it allows them to imagine, create, and play! In this method, a small group is given 3 or 4 “trend cards” (each card explains a different emerging trend and comes from a different driving force), and they are then asked to develop a short story that describes a world where these trends intersect and define the landscape.
  • Design Fiction is a fairly new method of imagining the future of a particular strategy, action, or product, connecting the disciplines of design and futures thinking. Science Fiction is a natural medium for design fiction, describing new technologies and worlds that are products of a world beyond today. Some fantastic design fiction projects have been created in the last several years in which actual products, magazines, technological prototypes, and advertising campaigns were placed in public locations, forcing individuals to interact with a future they may not have imagined.
  • Scenario/Strategy Matrix, a tool that is often used after a scenario planning and development project. This method allows the user to gauge the “future-readiness” of their organizational strategies under the various scenario conditions, ensuring that attention is given to making each strategy robust, adaptive, and transformational.
  • Signposts can be added to the end of a scenario planning project as well, suggesting scenario times frames, and pointing out the specific emerging obstacles that could put the brakes on any particular strategy.
—

Now imagine these “suites” as one comprehensive learning program, each piece building on the last to help leaders across disciplines to integrate the competency of futures thinking. That’s exactly what Kedge has done in creating our Executive Futures Program, with an eye on working alongside the leaders of the 21st Century to raise the “foresight IQ” in organizational and social enterprise. This means promoting leadership that understands the necessity of viewing the future through the lens of alternatives rather than linear outcomes. This emerging breed of new thinkers knows that complexity is a birthplace for opportunity rather than an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and that a picture comprised of multiple outcomes holds the key to answering our greatest challenges.


As our present landscape of volatility has many leaders scrambling to create “survival manuals,” those who are learning and employing the skill of Futures Thinking are realizing that we can operate out of an entirely different mindset – trailblazing a path into new organizational structures and ideas, new entrepreneurial ventures and social innovations, and new economic terrain that will allow us to thrive.

—-

Prior to founding the futures & foresight, innovation, and strategic design consultancy Kedge, Frank spent 15 years as a leadership coach and developer with entrepreneurs, social communities, networking initiatives and SMEs, helping them to create social innovation, organizational development, and transformational inititives. He holds a Master of Arts in Strategic Foresight from the School of Global Leadership and Entrepreneurship at Regent University, and is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists and the World Futures Studies Federation. With a strong background in both business and academic foresight, Frank created the first futures and foresight course for developing solutions to “wicked problems” at the Duke University TIP Institutes (“The Futures Institute: Creating Tomorrow Now”), is on the organizing team to develop the MSc in Foresight and Innovation at ISTIA/The University of Angers in France, and will begin teaching a course on advanced foresight in organizations at The Savannah College of Art and Design Spring 2012. As a partner at Kedge, Frank has created future-ready strategy, opportunities, and action for companies such as Marriott, Mars, Kraft and Disney, and has spoken to various groups and conferences over the last 20 years on topics such as leadership development, community and social architecture, the importance of the skill of futures thinking, creating corporate foresight divisions, recognizing the impact of emerging trends and issues, identifying and seizing unseen opportunities, and reaching business aspirations and preferred futures. Find Frank on twitter @frankspencer.
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Further Reading:

3 Reasons CIOs Need Scenario Planning
This Is Generation Flux: Meet the Pioneers of the New (and Chaotic) Frontier of Business
Foresight Education and Research Network
Acceleration Studies Foundation
World Future Society

3 Tools for Futures Thinking & Foresight Development

08 Wednesday Dec 2010

Posted by Venessa Miemis in Uncategorized

≈ 32 Comments

Tags

futures

(followup to When Futures Thinking Meets Design Thinking post)

The last post outlined a general framework for “futures thinking.” Here, we look at three techniques for honing your ability to see beyond the horizon.

1. Trend Analysis

In order to develop the capacity for imagining alternative futures and create design solutions accordingly, it is useful to be aware of the current driving forces and megatrends underway. The “STEEP” categories [Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic, Political] give us the mental framework for understanding the complex web of change around us, and can also be further broken down into subcategories for refinement. For example, “Social” could be viewed at the more granular levels of culture, organization, and personal.

Once a trend is identified, both its causes and impacts can be considered. For instance, a rise in life expectancy might be caused by rising living standards, better medical treatments, and healthier environments. The corresponding impacts of this trend may be that a longer portion of a person’s life is spent in retirement, and so there will be an increasing demand in goods and services for the elderly and perhaps a bigger financial strain on families to care for aging parents or grandparents. What types of environments should be designed in order to accommodate these changes?

Another example is the increasing amount of “leisure time” people are now facing. Technological automation has made human involvement in many processes unnecessary, and global economic recession has left many unemployed. If these trends continue, what types of structures must be designed in order to redirect the wasted productivity and surplus mental power that is currently sitting idle? When thinking about the world at this scale, the “big picture” pops out and we can begin to think about design in terms of strategic preparation for our future.

2. Visioning

Clarifying a vision is one of the most powerful mechanisms for engaging a team, organization or community and getting them excited to push forward into new territory. A successfully designed product or service should intentionally impact the thoughts and behaviors of society and culture, and serve as an example of the mindset and values of its creators. So, what does this future humanity look like? Creating that clear vision is a precursor to planning, and a key to creating the conditions to mobilize a group of collaborators around a common goal.

There is a nice guideline in the book Futuring that breaks down this process of “Preferred Futuring” into these eight tasks:

1. Review the organization’s common history to create a shared appreciation.
2. Identify what’s working and what’s not. Brainstorm and list “prouds” and “sorries.”
3. Identify underlying values and beliefs, and discuss which ones to keep and which to abandon.
4. Identify relevant events, developments, and trends that may have an impact on moving to a preferred future.
5. Create a preferred future vision that is clear, detailed, and commonly understood. All participants, or at least a critical mass, should feel a sense of investment or ownership in the vision.
6. Translate future visions into action goals.
7. Plan for action: Build in specific planned steps with accountabilities identified.
8. Create a structure for implementing the plan, with midcourse corrections, celebrations, and publicizing of successes.

Ultimately, it’s not about creating MY vision, but about creating a SHARED vision. As responsible, forward thinking humans, we all want to create a better future. But what does it look like? Have we defined it? Have we described it? Who are we within it? What does interaction look like? If our idea gained mass adoption, what would that mean? What does that world look like?

If we can see it, we can build it.

3. Scenario Development

As an extension of visioning, scenario development is where the power of narrative comes in. Throughout human history, we are defined by the stories we tell each other and ourselves. We create meaning and understanding by the way we remember our stories, like personal cargo that we carry in our minds. Our surroundings, natural or designed, are artifacts and objects within those stories. When thinking about the future, whether it’s the future of society, the organization, or the self, developing a series of scenarios allows us to objectively deal with uncertainty and imagine plausible costs and benefits to various actions and their consequences. It is often suggested to create a minimum of three scenarios when considering future events or situations by identifying futures that are possible, probable, and preferable. Here’s a suggested five sample scenario from the Futuring book:

1. A Surprise-Free Scenario: Things will continue much as they are now. They won’t become substantially better or worse.
2. An Optimistic Scenario: Things will go considerably better than in the recent past.
3. A Pessimistic Scenario: Something will go considerably worse than in the past.
4. A Disaster Scenario: Things will go terribly wrong, and our situation will be far worse than anything we have previously experienced.
5. A Transformation Scenario: Something spectacularly marvelous happens – something we never dared to expect.

Once the stories has been written that describes what each of these scenarios looks like, the conversation can begin. What is the likelihood of each of these? What is the desirability? What are the correlating values of the people? And most importantly, what actions can be taken today to steer the ship and design towards or away from the various scenarios?

Two common methods for determining a potential course of action are forecasting and backcasting. While forecasting starts in the present and projects forward into the future, backcasting starts with a future goal or event and works it’s way back to the present. In this method, the sequence of events or steps that led to that goal are imagined and defined, so that a roadmap to that desirable future is created. In either case, the scenarios generated serve to illuminate pathways to action.

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Further Reading:

Futuring: The Exploration of the Future

Foundations of Futures Studies

The Art of the Long View

Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight

The Universal Traveler: A Guide to Creativity, Problem Solving & the Process of Reaching Goals

–

imagery found at Imaginary Foundation

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