SFI Logo

Strategic Futures International thought you'd like answers
to some basic questions about how to increase the odds of success
in strategic forecasting and strategic management . . .


Can you do your best without using scenarios?

No

Is a scenario a forecast?

No

Should a scenario be written without forecasting?

No

Should scenarios focus just on the external environment?

No

Should you start by identifying "driving forces"?

No

Aren't economic and demographic forecasts enough?

No

Should you forecast trends only?

No

Should you forecast without quantifying?

No

Can you ignore the soft stuff, like values or beliefs?

No

Are complex simulation or econometric models necessary?

No

Can you just stick with mathematical trend extrapolation?

No

Are outside published forecasts likely to be useful?

No

Can you avoid relying on judgmental forecasts?

No

Can you do it with a "best case," "worst case," and "most likely" scenario?

No

Can you simplify by focusing on just the top handful of trends and possible future events?

No

Can the possible interactions among your forecasted trends and events be represented adequately
without cross-impact analysis?

No

Can you forget about probabilities?

No

Is the "most likely" future likely?

No

Does forecast accuracy matter?

No

Will my scenarios tell the company what it should do?

No

Should you keep top management out of the game until you've got your scenarios in good shape
and you're ready to begin talking seriously about business policy choices?

No

Is this all about methodology?

Absolutely not

Can anyone help me sort this out?

Yes.
We can.

For the better part of three decades, the principals who formed Strategic Futures International have worked on issues of strategic management with chief executives, as well as other senior line and staff executives responsible for strategy development in areas such as marketing, new products and services, planning, and human resources.

Our focus is on practical, state-of-the-art applications of what we call the strategic futures approach. Within this framework, SFI does four things exceptionally well:

  • We work to ensure that your strategic assumptions about the future are sound--robust, authoritative, and relevant. This is where Applied Futures Research comes in. The issue is knowledge. The aim is to avoid trivializing the future--and thereby to avoid unnecessary surprise.
  • We help you to identify and evaluate a full array of policy options consistent with your assumptions and flexible enough to prevail in important alternative futures. This is where scenarios and other advanced methods come in. The issue is decisions about action. The aim is mission success.
  • We involve your key internal and external stakeholders in this process, drawing systematically on their experience, knowledge, and insights. In working with outside stakeholders, the aim is to ensure that the viewpoints of customers, suppliers, and others about the need for change are captured and explicitly included in the process. In working with insiders, especially the core management team, the aim is make them true owners of the assumptions and policy options, and thus ensure strong, well-informed support for the plans based on them. The issue is managing strategically through a comprehensive and shared vision of the future.
  • We help transfer SFI's distinctive approach and methodologies into your organization so that they too are owned and become yours to refine in later planning cycles. Simply put, the aim is to re-engineer the strategic management process. The issue is survival, innovation, and growth . . . by design.

By the way, in reviewing our questions you may have noted that almost everything published these days on strategic management answers them differently. The difference matters. Give us a call; we will be happy to meet with you to explain why.

SFI's Home Page SFI Eagle Applied Futures Research

Strategic Futures International
In the U.S.: 955 L'Enfant Plaza, N., S.W., Suite 4000, Washington, DC 20045bulletTel: bulletFax:
In the U.K.: 18th Floor, St. Alphage House, 2 Fore Street, London, EC2Y 5DAbulletTel: bulletFax: 0171 256 6930
Strategic Futures International - Home Page Archive

sfutures.com v 4_3