From time to time, Strategic Futures International offers its Futures Seminar, "Making the Future." It provides an intensive, two-day survey of perspectives on change management and techniques of forecasting and planning that aren't taught in our universities . . . and aren't discussed at your trade association meetings . . . but have been used over the last 30 years by many senior managers in organizations large and small to develop a shared strategic vision, spur innovation, capture market share, build customer loyalty, and substantially reduce the dangers of external surprise.

The key to results like these is sustained and consistent application of what Strategic Futures International calls the strategic futures approach.

This approach has been applied with great success in many areas:

Strategic Planning Corporate Development

New Product & Service Development Market Research

R&D Planning Human Resources Development & Planning

Mergers & Acquisitions Planning Environmental Analysis

Competitive Assessment Public Affairs

Of course, we know that you cannot fully benefit from this approach without bringing it in house, without making it your own and refining it through work to develop a corporate strategic vision worth the name--one that you and your team can fight for because it's clearly better than its conventional, often frustrating alternatives . . . and because you and they created it together.

But you've got to start somewhere. This seminar--the first of its kind to be offered publicly--provides the way.

What is "the strategic futures approach"?

It's two things.

First, it's a distinctive way of looking at the future . . . at the likely consequences of the decisions on your agenda today . . . at future opportunities and threats . . . at the real, often unstated assumptions underlying these forecasts . . . at options for achieving the same or better outcomes with fewer risks and lower costs . . . and at the dynamic interaction among your current and prospective mission, objectives, goals, strategies, and actions . . . all in full view of uncertain (and not always favorable) change, both within your organization and in your operating environment and the larger macro-environment.

Sound familiar? It should, because every competent advisor on strategy uses the same words.

The difference, and it is profound, is the subject of our seminar. It will show you--with concrete examples drawn from actual corporate and government experience--why and how the strategic futures approach delivers uniquely on these expectations by:

• Systematically describing and evaluating significant alternative images of the future . . .

• each rigorously derived from a well-developed image of the "most likely" future . . .

• which is itself constructed through nine activities, undertaken simultaneously:

1. Adopting and maintaining the appropriate strategic time horizon

2. Defining and forecasting the future robustly (not just the usual financial and market variables)

3. Taking very systematic account of the causal relationships among the forecasted developments

4. Dealing explicitly with risks and uncertainties of all types (not just the ones that are easily quantified)

5. Synthesizing your views on what you expect with those on what you want

6. Letting the problem determine the choice of research techniques, not vice versa

7. Keeping the focus always on policy issues, examining every key prospective development for its implications, particularly potential impacts on your stakeholders

8. Questioning everything, especially the problem as stated--and basic assumptions underlying current forecasts and evaluations

9. Looking carefully at the strengths and limitations of the process used to do the preceding and for ways to implement it in your own organization -- to augment, not replace--your current strategic forecasting and planning capabilities

These words, too, will sound familiar. As the seminar will demonstrate, however, they characterize only one process: the strategic futures approach to strategic planning and management. All other alternatives fall short of (or entirely ignore) one or more of these defining standards. None of these alternatives, to our knowledge, meets them simultaneously. We will show you how it can be done.

But this approach is also something else: a proven method of facilitating candid and highly focused strategic thinking and communication among your organization's leadership. Outsiders do not create your strategic vision. How can they? You do. But how well does this process work now within your organization?

In a day of process re-engineering, the strategic futures approach provides the means of re-engineering the strategic management process itself. You will see why this approach is collegial, why and how everyone who should participate does. And, because it has safeguards at key points to ensure that all participants have the chance to speak their mind, without risk of embarrassment (or worse), you will learn how you can truly draw on the organization's collective wisdom to develop a common, articulated understanding of where you are, where you are heading, where you could be going, and why. Moreover, we will show you how this can be accomplished quickly, using well-established techniques in a combination that is unique to SFI's futures approach.

Along the way, we'll take an example or two and involve you in the process so you can see first-hand something of how the approach actually works.

More specifically . . .

If this sounds useful, take a few minutes to review the detailed agenda. You'll see why our seminar is unique--and why we guarantee a very productive learning experience.

Faculty

This seminar has been designed, proven, and continually updated in proprietary applications for more than ten years. The lead faculty includes pioneers in the development of the strategic futures approach with the leading research and consulting organizations in the field: The RAND Corporation, The Futures Group, the Institute for the Future, the Center for Futures Research at the University of Southern California, and the Hudson Institute. They are:

• Wayne I. Boucher Mr. Boucher is Managing Partner of SFI. Since 1963, he has worked with many corporations and governmental agencies in North and South America, Japan, and Europe on problems requiring the application of advanced approaches to strategic forecasting and planning. He has also lectured on this subject at major universities and in the executive training programs of corporations and government agencies in several countries. Author or co-author of nearly 200 publications, his books include The Study of the Future and Systems Analysis and Policy Planning, both of which were adopted internationally as textbooks.

• Trevor Hunwicks Managing Partner of SFI in the UK, Mr. Hunwicks was for many years a senior executive with one of the UK's largest building societies, with responsibilities in field operations, marketing, planning, and, in the later years, corporate development at the board level. His consulting, as well as his service as chairman of a large community college, focuses on strategic management. Over the last five years, he has been instrumental in introducing the strategic futures approach in England.

• Irving Leveson. Former Director of Economic Studies at the Hudson Institute, Dr. Leveson consults widely with leading companies on planning and policy questions. His publications include several books and many reports on business, economic, and social issues, including major explorations of the future of the financial services industry and other sectors of the corporate, national, and global economy. His most recent book is American Challenges: Business and Government in the World of the 1990s.

Who Should Attend?

This seminar is intended for the core management team, across functional specialties, in corporations, partnerships, and public agencies of all sizes. You or your boss (and one or more of your colleagues whose judgment will be needed in a decision to bring the strategic futures approach in house) should consider attending.

Chief executives, as well as senior executives with a responsibility for strategy development in the areas listed at the beginning of this discussion, will find the seminar especially worthwhile. Prior familiarity with the philosophy and methodologies of the strategic futures approach is not necessary, and the presentations will be non-mathematical.

Enrollment is always limited at each seminar to ensure lively discussion with the attendees.

Organizations that would prefer a private in-house seminar instead, or perhaps a seminar and a futures workshop tailored to the organization, so that more members of the management team can participate from the start, should call SFI about dates and cost.

When Is the Seminar Offered?

As indicated earlier, this two-day seminar --”Making the Future” -- has been proprietary to individual clients for well over a decade. A one-day version, focusing just on scenarios and scenario-writing, was first conducted in June 1996 under the auspices of the UK Strategic Planning Society. We have repeated that seminar several times since, and SPS has engaged us to continue the offering for its members through 1997 and into 1999.

Beginning in 1997, the full two-day version will now be presented publicly in the U.S. and the UK. Our goal is to give attendees a detailed, practical survey, illustrated with concrete real-world examples, that will better enable them to design and direct futures work of their own or become better buyers.

The schedule for the first half of 1997 is as follows:

A detailed announcement, with registration information, is available from our offices and may be ordered using the Seminar Information link presented below. Because our sessions in London have been oversubscribed, we urge early registration .

The Futures Seminar is also still available to individual organizations on a proprietary basis, in which case the material used can be tailored specifically to the organization. Contact SFI for

Seminar Information SFI's Home Page

---

Strategic Futures International
In the U.S.: 955 L'Enfant Plaza, N., S.W., Suite 4000, Washington, DC 20045 Tel: Fax:
In the U.K.: 18th Floor, St. Alphage House, 2 Fore Street, London, EC2Y 5DATel: Fax: 0171 256 6930