Futures Methodologies
(Updated on a regular basis. Please check back soon!)

Big Picture Thinking

A series of tools for recognizing, defining, and utilizing "the big picture" will be presented. Big picture analysis adds value to local systems. Context is more important than content. Perspective is more important than IQ. Big picture analysis leads to whole system strategic insight. Data visualization is one tool for big picture recognition and discernment, but not all data visualization tools lead to big pictures. Other tools for discerning the big picture from background noise will be presented.

Who should attend: Decision makers, corporate executives, government officials, educators, planners, designers.
What you’ll learn: The ability to discern the big picture in the midst of information overload and extract or derive meaning is crucial for survival in the twenty-first. Attendees will learn techniques for big picture perception.
How can this knowledge be applied: Every business, organization, and government agency has to see the big picture or they become ineffectual and irrelevant. This knowledge can be applied to strategic planning, new product development, problem solving, and innovation.

Medard Gabel, CEO, BigPicture Consulting, author, Media, Pennsylvania
Curt McNamara, professor, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, Minnesota

key words: whole systems, data visualization
issue areas: Futures Methodologies, Learning and Education, Social and Cultural Trends

Building a Global Futurist Wiki Community: Using a Future Map of China

Global issues cannot be tackled without taking into consideration multiple, often conflicting perspectives. Global collaboration drives the life of enterprises today.

What role can new technologies play? Wikipedia and Linux are just two examples of the collaboration revolution we see unfolding. Across many domains, from software to art, wiki communities rewrite the rules of business and reshape relationships.

What about Future Studies? How can we create a global collaboration when working on future-focused projects? How can the wiki approach be applied to building collaborative futurist communities? Are there specific tools that futurists can use?

This presentation will build on the experience of the Future Map of China, a collaborative project involving a number of China specialists from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and other major academic institutions.

Who should attend: Futurist leaders of international organizations and projects, educators, forecasters, and business managers in charge of global projects.
What you'll learn: Participants will learn how to create and lead global virtual futurist communities, how to use new emerging futurist tools, and how to organize and run Web-based projects.
How can this new knowledge be applied: Participants will be able to apply the knowledge to create virtual wiki communities around their projects and will be able to use new tools to enhance global collaboration.

Jephraim Gundzik, former founder and president, Condor Advisers, Inc., Mammoth Lakes, California
Donald Heathfield, founder, Future Map, Cambridge, Massachusetts

key words: communities, tools, wiki, China, forecasts
issue areas: Future Methodologies, Learning and Education, Governance and Communities

SPECIAL EVENT

Using Futures in Organizational Strategy

 While many futures projects take a blanket approach to strategic foresight, when applied deliberately, futures work contributes to organizational strategy and encourages a coordinated approach to achieving defined objectives in a number of ways. In this session, panelists will discuss their experiences and methodologies in using futures to craft business, nonprofit and association strategies from a number of different perspectives. Topics will include the design of a forward-looking strategic planning processes, the role of foresight in larger change management efforts and ways that futures tools are used to cultivate visionary leadership. 

Who should attend: Business, non-profit and association leaders and those interested in the relationship between futures and organizational strategy.
What you will learn: Participants will learn several methodologies for integrating foresight into the broader pursuit of organizational objectives.
How can this new knowledge be applied: Attendees will come away with a better sense of the roles that foresight can play in an organization’s strategy.

Devin Fidler, futurist, Institute for Alternative Futures, Alexandria, Virginia
Jonathan Peck, president, Institute for Alternative Futures, Alexandria, Virginia
William Rowley, senior futurist and COO, Institute for Alternative Futures, Alexandria, Virginia

key words: organizational strategy, strategic planning, change leadership
issue areas: Futures Methodologies, Business and Careers

Assessing Foresight Capabilities: An Organizational Scorecard

The first step in improving any foresight practice is learning where you stand. Social Technologies has developed the first-of-its-kind Foresight Maturity Model, based on Carnegie Mellon’s successful software engineering model. It presents a clear and disciplined approach for assessing where you are in the many different practices of foresight. It can help practitioners answer the question how are we doing? This continuous process improvement approach moves each practice through the five different levels of maturity or development: ad hoc, aware, capable, mature, and world class.

Who should attend: This session should be attended by everyone that wants to improve the foresight capabilities of their organization.
What you will learn: They will learn how to measure the level of current foresight practices in the organization and how they can go through a growth process to improve those practices.
How can this new knowledge be applied: This knowledge is directly applicable to an organization or business that is using foresight in their work. It will show how they can baseline and improve their practices. 

Terry Grim, futurist and strategist, Social Technologies, adjunct professor, Studies of the Future, University of Houston, Seabrook, Texas
Scott Reif, futurist, Social Technologies, Washington, D.C.

key words: foresight methodologies, assessment, organizations, change processes
issue areas: Futures Methodologies, Business and Careers

Future Management: Processes and Tools

Over the past two decades futurists have successfully used scenario planning to guide management teams in long-term thinking. Yet future workshops are rarely connected to the management systems that executives use on a regular basis. How can futurists bridge this gap between long-term strategy and short-term performance? This session will: (1) share best practices to upgrade strategic conversations among management teams, (2) review various enterprise software platforms that claim to support environmental scanning and trend analysis, and (3) discuss how information technology can help, as well as hinder, strategic choice based on both intuition and logic.

Who should attend: Practicing futurists, business leaders, innovation experts, and strategists.
What you’ll learn: How futures processes and tools relate to strategic management.
How can this new knowledge be applied: This knowledge can help participants relate futures thinking to top management teams or senior policy decision-makers.

Jay Gary, director and professor, M.A. in Strategic Foresight, School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia
Don Heathfield, inventor and president Future Map concept, , Future Map, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Paris, France

key words: corporate foresight, management teams, trend analysis, horizon scanning
issue areas: Future Methodologies, Business and Careers, Technology and Science

State-of-the-Art Monitoring Systems

Forewarned is forearmed. In today's quickly changing environments, nimble organizations are closely scanning and monitoring the forces that create new game changing opportunities and warn about possible threats or discontinuities. This panel will introduce the audience to state-of-the-art approaches in scanning, monitoring, and trend-tracking systems that leading organizations employ to stay on the cutting edge of change.

Who should attend: Corporate executives, decision makers, government officials, marketing executives, strategists, innovation leaders, and anyone interested in integrated monitoring systems as the backbone to their foresight activities.
What you’ll learn: Attendees will go away with a clear understanding of what monitoring systems could and should be. They will also be exposed to a variety of approaches and the rationale of the leaders in the field.
How can this new knowledge be applied: It is imperative for every business, organization, and government agency to stay ahead of the game and keep its finger on the pulse of change. This session will show you how.

Ted Gordon, author; founder, The Futures Group, senior fellow, UNU Millennium Project
Roumiana Gotseva, futurist and leader, Futures Observatory, Social Technologies, London, England, United Kingdom
Mike Jackson, chairman, Shaping Tomorrow, Stafford, England, United Kingdom

key words: trends, monitoring systems, change, scanning, trend-tracking
issue areas: Futures Methodologies, Social and Cultural Trends

How to Realize Future Scenarios in the Strategic Planning Process

In the beginning of the strategic planning process we start with a fresh way to look at the future. We might use weak signals and gather them in large amounts from people in our organizations. After this beginning, we can easily revert to traditional methods of deciding where we are heading. We choose too often the traditional way to develop our organizations. We make an easy compromise between different ways to look at the future in the name of safe and comfortable strategic decision.

How to avoid this situation in the strategic planning process? How to find new, creative ways to restore weak signals founded in the beginning of the process?

Who should attend: All those persons involved in the strategic planning in their organizations.
What you’ll learn: During this interactive session participants will learn and discuss strategic planning process.
How can this new knowledge be applied: Participants can use this knowledge in their own company, organization or even in their personal lives.

Meimi Lahti, senior lecturer, Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, Pori, Finland

key words: futures, planning, strategies
issue areas: Futures Methodologies, Business and Careers, Governance and Communities

Complex Adaptive Systems and Futures Thinking: Theories, Applications, and Methods

Futurists are inherently big-picture thinkers. They look at how different variables interact in dynamic ways over time within a broader systems context.  Today the world is seeking to integrate increasing diversity and complexity within ever larger and more pre-hierarchical systems. We will look at scientific paradigms and theories dealing with complex adaptive systems, applications of systems thinking in different areas of concern to futurists, and tools and methods for dealing with complexity in different areas

Who should attend: Anyone interested in learning how complex adaptive systems work, how systems thinking can help us to better understand and deal with the increasing complexity of today’s world, and the many issues of interest to futurists today.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn about new scientific paradigms and theories related to complex adaptive systems; how whole systems thinking can be applied to many issues and areas of interest to futurists today.
How can this new knowledge be applied: Being able to see how different variables interact with each other within a dynamic, whole systems context can aid everyone to better understand the complexity of many issues facing the world and society today.

Linda Groff, professor, political science and future studies, California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, California
Rima Shaffer, Shaffer Synergistics, Inc., Washington, D.C.
(Other speakers to be announced)

key words: future studies, complex adaptive systems
issue area: Futures Methodologies

For more information contact: World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814;
Tel: 1-800-989-8274 or 1-301-656-8274;  Fax: 1-301-951-0394;  Web Site: www.wfs.org;  E-mail: sechard@wfs.org.