On "Prediction Accuracy"

Journalists often write articles compiling forecasts that have not come to pass, attributing them to futurists. Real futurists always respond, “Futurists don’t make predictions!”

That is true in theory: the goal of futurism is not to make predictions. In any case, the mockery-inducing forecasts are usually by non-futurists.

Still, the truth is that real futurists, people who get called futurists, and people who could be called futurists make forecasts that sound a great deal like predictions all the time.

You can attack these forecasts cheaply and sloppily, as the media often does, but they can also be approached as genuinely useful tools in diagnosing the quality of someone’s foresight thinking. Forecast accuracy can help illuminate three things:

• Subject knowledge: If the person is making a forecast about a topic, this is fair game, even if many futurists concentrate on process, not content. Accuracy can help reveal whether they know enough about a topic to work effectively in the area — and whether they understand the limitations of their knowledge.
• Perceptions of change: A basic futurist skill is having a feel for change: how fast or slow change tends to go, and the plausible bounds of that speed, in different arenas and systems. Incorrect forecasts are often due to a failure in this critical area.
• Systems thinking: Forecast failures often reveal inadequate systems thinking, another basic futures competency. The person may not have understood the driver or actors in the system, or might have failed to anticipate a discontinuity.

So forecast accuracy should be used with care in evaluating the quality of foresight, but it can be a meaningful yardstick.