I have been thinking a lot about the state of strategic foresight and corporate futurism a lot recently, so I came up with a methodology that harkens back to using more imagination to leap beyond using data to inform and inspire.
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones. — Donald Rumsfeld, 2002
Strategic foresight as it stands today has become entrenched in nowism and short term vision, it is very unlikely to uncover the ‘unknown unknowns’ because it relies far too heavily on numbers and trend analysis — the result of which is that you are working with the known knowns and the known unknowns already. There are no statistical models or trend reports that can uncover these without diverse human input, so I decided to try to come up with a framework that allows for this.
Desirable Future Identification — Begin by identifying a desirable future or set of futures. This should be a visionary exercise, imagining an ideal scenario without being constrained by current limitations. This is perhaps the hardest part because we’ve been conditioned to believe that there is a current roadmap to possible futures, and they all look the same.
Hauntological Analysis — Reflect on ‘lost futures’ or past visions of the future that were never realized. Understand why these futures did not materialize and what can be learned from them. What would the world have looked like if they did come true, and how would societal, technological, corporate, political, and economic landscapes have been shaped differently? You could incorporate the many different ‘punk’ genres here as well because of their cultural significance of the time, and also that still exists today.
Polyfuturism — Bring in other deep-rooted cultural perspectives and biological/ biomimetic systems that reflect not only societal attitudes towards the future but also include the indigenous and the natural to integrate this into the next step (
Speculative Narratives (Sci-fi Prototyping) — Develop speculative narratives that bridge the gap between the hauntological analysis and polyfuturist inputs and the identified desirable futures. Past lessons, present knowledge, and future aspirations should inform these narratives and tell the story of what personal and corporate life is like living in this desired future.
Threatcasting — Within these narratives, identify potential threats and challenges that could prevent the realization of the desirable future(s). This includes analyzing current trends and potential future risks. By integrating Sci-fi Prototyping in the previous step you’re also looking beyond data analysis which can become restrictive, data does not allow you to leap beyond logic or think about the ‘unknown unknowns’.
Backward Mapping - From the desirable future scenarios, work backward to map out the steps and milestones needed to achieve these futures. This should include corporate strategies to overcome identified threats and leverage opportunities, but these are not the sole goals.
Then, continuously revise and update the narratives, threat analysis, and backcasting steps based on new insights, technological advancements, and societal changes. This isn’t a hard and fast methodology, but one I believe starts to step away from using only data to inform a forecasting strategy and stops execs from listening to influencer trends as a signpost to where things are going. After all, we’ve seen that when the winds change, so too do the influencers you believed in before.
Strategic foresight and futurism should be less concerned with running numbers and more about paying attention to the many systems all at work — both obvious and hidden.
If you’re looking to develop a strategic foresight function in your organisation and not only want to understand how the world can change outside of trend analysis but also involve and teach employees and senior execs to think beyond what they already know, get in touch.
Also published here.