SFI's two-day seminar divides into the following sections, some short, some long, but each with ample time for Q&A. Together, they provide a complete survey of the approach recommended by Strategic Futures International, as well as alternatives recommended by others.

What Is the Strategic Futures Approach?

Why surprise occurs Why conventional strategic management fails The rise of systems analysis and futures research in the military and in industry to do the job better The global impact of these new ways of thinking The essence of applied futures research Predictions vs. forecasts Scenarios vs. forecasts Three modes of forecasting The applied futures research model, and why it works A few little-known but striking examples of success Why this model is at the core of the strategic futures approach Tools and techniques; entering and leaving the Boucher Pit at different levels Why a new form of internal corporate communications and new commitments about the nature of strategic management are both also central to the approach. It's not just methodology. Overview of the seminar.

Getting Started: What's the Real Problem?

Issues identification as both a technical and an organizational problem Among the basic technical questions: What balance should be struck between internal and external factors? What's the scope? What's the strategic time horizon? How to balance criteria of issue identification such as high urgency, high risk and uncertainty, and high bottom-line impact on the corporation. Role of "expert" knowledge. Is there a need for custom research or data-gathering? Among the organizational questions: How well does your present planning system address the issues? Who are the stakeholders? Why strategic thinking is a key responsibility of line managers throughout the organization, not just the planning staff. Who must be involved? Between them, can they cover the issues, given the right tools and techniques? Do you have time to apply the strategic futures approach? How will the strategic futures approach fit the corporate culture and the operating style of top management? The need to keep the process simple, without trivializing the problem or letting the process become a mere exercise.

What Do You Really Need To Know? How Do You Get It? First Steps.

If you need new information, where should your energy go? Outside sources, and why most can be ignored How the useful ones can be tapped effectively What is scanning? Building a scanning system Examples Using the Net Avoiding focus groups Can the corporate library help? Relying on the inside team for information and insights. What's their take on the real problem? How simple methods, used properly, can develop reliable answers to parts of this question--and surface values and beliefs that affect performance but often go unarticulated Review of these methods and how they actually work: Brainstorming (endless variations), simple polls, and the nominal group technique Review of more advanced methods, notably the relevance tree and the form of structured interview pioneered by SFI principals Why the first need is for an image of the "most likely" future and why this must be constructed on the basis of solid, robust working lists of important trends . . . possible future events . . . strategic policy options now in the air . . . and corporate measures of performance Why a much sharper sense of corporate mission, objectives, and goals will arise from consideration of these elements, not vice versa.

How Do You Get Useful Forecasts of the "Most Likely" Future?

Why outside published forecasts are generally useless, especially ones that cost a lot Why simpler methods are almost always better than complex ones Why trend extrapolation and simulation modeling (of most types) are not likely to help Why methods need to be taken seriously, but why the assumptions behind the forecasts are what count Why "genius forecasts" and historical analogy, though essential, usually fail Why ordinary meetings usually fail If all this is true, how to get the forecasts and the assumptions needed to build the "most likely" future.

Using Advanced Versions of Proven Approaches

What is the Delphi Technique? Trash variations The use of advanced versions of Delphi, especially the Interview Delphi (developed by SFI principals) The use of special, accelerated processes like the Focused Planning Effort (FPE)--also developed by SFI principals When and how to use outside panels How the "most likely" results will look when you get them, how they differ from their conventional alternatives, and why the difference matters Examples from corporate and government experience.

A Quick Exercise To Illustrate Delphi in an FPE Setting.

Selecting the subject Framing the question Collating and analyzing the responses Sanity check The need for iteration How the results compare to those from other approaches.

So This Is the "Most Likely" Future? Not Quite!

Why you still don't have the "most likely" future, even though that's all you've been working on so far The probability of a future Why the "most likely" future isn't Risk and uncertainty Chaos and complexity The "bet-able" future How to tell a useful forecast, or set of forecasts, from what often passes for such in planning The softness of criteria for judging results at this point in the strategic futures approach, and the folly of trying to impose higher standards than is logically or physically possible In particular, why forecast accuracy is irrelevant How these results, though limited, can still be immediately useful in the search for strategic policy options Why a serious, planning-relevant future must be more than the sum of its underlying forecasts What's needed.

What Is a Scenario?

The endless hype and confusion about scenarios and scenario-based planning The 14 major kinds of scenarios, how they are built, and the purposes each serves in strategic thinking The need to choose consciously among them to meet your corporate requirements The kind SFI recommends, and why The "genius forecaster" and the "most likely" scenario What does a scenario look like when properly done? Criteria for a good scenario The probability of scenarios How many scenarios do you need?

How Can You Use Scenarios To Identify & Evaluate Policy Options?

Uses and abuses of the principal types of scenarios The practical way to use these types of scenarios to formulate and test strategic policy options How to use simple tools, such as cross-support analysis, to help in this effort The many other uses of scenarios.

So These Are Alternative Futures? Not Quite!

The triviality of "best" and "worst" cases Alternatives? To what? The only comprehensive and rigorous ways to develop even the outline of serious alternative futures: "genius forecasting" (again) and cross-impact analysis, perhaps supported by other techniques The many variations of cross-impact analysis, and which to use The cross-impact matrix--how it is built and why it is so vitally important to the success of the strategic futures approach Why an outline is not a future, and why you still need scenarios Using the "most likely" scenario and important alternative scenarios to distill a final set of policy options worth carrying forward.

A Demonstration of Cross-Impact Analysis

SFI's "Serious Scenarios"® model The inputs Creating the outlines for hundreds of alternative futures in seconds, each of them guaranteed to be internally consistent, plausible, and policy relevant How to identify quickly the alternatives that are interesting and important enough to transform into scenarios When and how to introduce policy options back into the cross-impact model What would you have done if all you had was the "most likely" future or some pale imitation? Or alternatives merely plucked out of the air?

The Final Product

The futures . . . robust policies . . . a shared strategic vision . . . a new sense of team commitment . . . a much deeper understanding of the opportunities to master change . . . and a new basis for strategic management.

How Do You Link This Approach to Your Current Planning & IS Capabilities?

In principle, the results from the strategic futures approach will feed readily into current analytic and informational capabilities and organizational resources--and draw upon them. Why this won't happen automatically. Why corporate development, market research, financial analysis, production engineering, etc. will all need to contribute to the creation and evaluation of the new policy options in view of the alternative futures, and will want to add their improvements How this integration and cross-fertilization has been accomplished by some leading industrial, retail, and financial corporations The NIH factor and other dangers Auditing current capabilities and resources, and building the necessary linkages The need to sustain the commitment, with leadership from the top.

How Do You Make This Process Come Alive in Your Company?

When the pressure is all for short-term results in a down-sizing world, how do you make time to take the longer view? Involving different groups and individuals at different points Sharing interim results and formally obtaining feedback Communicating the process and the outputs to all stakeholders Using forecasted performance measures in several futures as a guide to recognition and reward for accomplishment consistent with the projections Reviewing and improving the corporation's mission, objectives, and goals in light of the "most likely" future and its major alternatives Conducting a strategic audit Making it clear that the first effort using the strategic futures approach is not an exercise, and that the results will periodically be updated, extended, and improved as a basis for corporate action and planning Sticking with the strategic futures approach until it's second nature in management Avoiding the mistakes of others, including the recent tendency among consultants, academics, and users toward gross simplification of core requirements of the approach PROBE, Sprint, and other classic examples.

From New Insights and Information to Knowledge, Decisions, and Action

Making organizational models fit the technological and business environment From macro to micro, from grand strategy to operational planning and implementation Capitalizing on unforeseen opportunities, coping with unforeseen threats Surprise as a fact of life, and the futility of acting otherwise How the strategic futures approach increases uncertainty while decreasing risk A reminder of why and how this result makes all the difference Thinking big, but starting small.

What Questions Remain?

The faculty will form a panel to field questions not raised so far.

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Seminar Information

SFI's Home Page

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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