Scenario planning process

How to whittle the virtually infinite number of possible futures that could be described down to a manageable three or four plots that will shed the most light on possible (Exodus) futures?

• Decision Focus: To get to a key decision in a focused scenario planning, we explore more general areas of risk and opportunity first
• Brainstorming Key Factors, for example Exodus Key Factors
• Pre-determining Elements

Here we have a fork in the road: you can take both paths, or one of the two paths. The inductive approach of scenario planning is more unsystematic and calls for degrees of creativity and imagination. And it requires patience with an open ended debate. On the deductive path, we prioritise our Key Factors in order to find the two most critical uncertainties and build plots guided by that. The deductive approach is easier with larger groups and for people untrained in reaching consensus.

• Deductive Scenario Logics (great for making a map)
• Inductive Scenario Logics (plotting a course is like an open-ended-planning-with-feedback-loops-and-obstacle-and-pitfall-avoidance)

Then we focus on what the name of our game is and address the inverse question. We beef up the skeletal scenarios to discover the insights we need.

Related Articles

• Tools for Business Scenario Planning (thinkup.waldenu.edu)
• S&OP Scenario Planning: Go Deep or Go Home (kinaxis.com)
• Technology’s Power to Transform the Lives of the Poor Revealed in New Study by the Rockefeller Foundation and Monitor’s Global Business Network (eon.businesswire.com)