This page offers some ideas on
strategy for those building foresight (also known as strategic
foresight, prospective, futures-awareness, etc.) in organizational
culture, and terms (the various labels future-oriented folks
can use to describe themselves and their processes in the
org), and the way that the use of different foresight terms
(descriptive labels) will promote different connotations and
outcomes in the organization. See our page on University
Foresight for ideas on bringing foresight education
to the modern University.
Organizational
Foresight - Strategy
Peter Bishop, director of the
U. Houston M.S. program in Futures
Studies in Commerce, divides Organizational Foresight
into the first three fundamental categories below.
We agree yet also add a fourth, below:
1. (Strategic, Long-Range) Planning. This
is the traditional and most common role for foresight in the
organization. It is well known that plans are rarely executed
as made, and often sit largely unread in between planning
events, but that certainly doesn't mean they aren't worth
making. There's good evidence that organizations that make
regular plans, and get broad stakeholder input, have significantly
better long term survival rates in a competitive market, as
long as the planning process isn't too costly or the plans
too rigidly followed. See The
Strategy Process, Henry Mintzberg
et. al. (Eds.), 2002 for more.
2. Forecasting and Technical Analysis (Operations
Research, Decision Analysis/Support, Risk Management, Market
Research, etc.). This is the next-most-frequently seen form
of organizational foresight. The better planning departments
in organizations will generate some in-house forecasts, generally
of variable quality, and another subset will find or pay for
a set of forecasts and research from outside. There are also
courses and certification programs (Inst.
of Business Forecasting & Planning, International
Inst. of Forecasters) for forecasting and closely related
technical analysis fields (operations research, decision
analysis, risk management/actuary work, marketing/survey research,
etc.), which are helpful in many contexts. Industry and technology
forecasting and roadmaps (particularly learning curves for
manufacturing, service delivery, etc.) can be surprisingly
accurate. Market forecasting is sometimes so (generally for
shorter periods), and social forecasting is the least reliable
(but still useful). See Principles
of Forecasting, Scott Armstrong,
2001 for more. Many (but not enough) CEOs recognize you need
good, inexpensive forecasting and technical analysis on a
range of relevant trends and issues, in order to make good
plans, so making the case for forecasting competency is quite
plausible in any organization that cares about plans. Good
planning and forecasting/technical analysis are necessary
but not sufficient for foresight. Forecasters bring a solid
technical, engineering, accounting, or risk management mindset
to the table, but need to be complemented by future-oriented
thinkers and methods to deliver superior strategy, as we describe
next.
3. Strategic Foresight. This is the work
of the "foresight professional,"
ideally the leading member of an organizational foresight
community. Strategic foresight uses many secondary foresight
specialties (see below) and complements them with a range
of primary foresight specialties (also see below). These strategic
foresight skills can be further subdivided into three
fundamental foresight perspectives (possible, probable,
and preferable futures), and four fundamental foresight
skills (creating, discovering/predicting, planning/negotiating,
or benefiting from/measuring progress toward the future).
See Foresight
Frameworks for more.
Strategic foresight builds on strategic plans, forecasts,
and technical analysis in an attempt to "future proof"
strategy as much as possible with the resources at hand. Just
as only a subset of planners will integrate good forecasting
work with their plans, a further subset of organizations will
consciously do strategic foresight work in concert with plans
and (ideally) good forecasts and quantitative analysis.
In building organizational foresight, it seems the most natural
and conservative growth path to move your organizational community
first into building a good Planning culture
the to building a good Forecasting culture
and finally, a to creating a good Strategic Foresight
culture. See Thinking
About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight,
Andy Hines and Peter Bishop,
2007, for more on strategic foresight.
Below is ASF's list of primary, secondary and other specialties
most commonly useful to the foresight professional. Any of
these specialties may be employed to bring strategic foresight
to the org. Some have a much longer and better developed methodological
history than others, and are more widely applicable, and some
are helpful only for special classes of problems.
Foresight Specialties
- Primary, Secondary, and Other
Primary
Foresight Specialties (24)
|
Secondary
Foresight Specialties (25) |
Alternative
Futures
Competitive Intelligence
Critical Futures and CLA
Development (Systemic) and Acceleration Studies
Emerging
Issues, Cross Impact and Pattern Analysis
Emerging Technologies Analysis
Ethnographic Futures
Forecasting and Modeling/Simulation (basic)
Foresight Frameworks and Foundations
History and Analysis of Prediction
Horizon Scanning and Weak Signals
Images and Artifacts of the Future
Persoal Futures/ Foresight Development
Prediction Markets
Predictive Surveys/ Delphi
Roadmapping
Scenario Development and Backcasting
Strategic Foresight and Scenario Planning
Strategy Games, Serious Games, and Wargames
Systems Thinking
Transhumanist/ Ethics of Emerging Tech Studies
Trend Extrapolation and Learning Curves
Visioning, Intuition, and Creative Thinking
Wildcards |
Actuarial
Science and Risk Assessment
Anthropology and Culture Studies
Cognitive and Positive Psychology
Collaboration, Facilitation, and Peace/Conflict Studies
Critical and Evidence-Based Thinking
Demographics and Sociology
Ethics and Values Studies
Evolution, Complexity and Systems Studies
Forecasting and Modeling/Simulation (advanced)
Futures, Sci-Fi, Utopian, and Dystopian Lit Studies
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Studies
Integral Studies and Thinking
Investing and Finance (Long-Term)
Leadership Studies and Organizational Development
Library Science and Knowledge Management
Long-Range and Urban Planning
Marketing, Public Relations, and Consumer Behavior
Political Science and Policy Studies
Probabilistic (Statistical) Prediction
Religious Studies (Future Beliefs)
Security/Defense Studies and International Relations
Science and Technology Studies and Technology Analysis
Socially Responsible / Triple Bottom Line Management
Strategic Planning, Decision Analysis and Support
Sustainability and Development (Economic) Studies |
Other
Foresight-Related Specialties (45, a
partial list) |
Anthropology
| Architecture | Astrobiology | Biological Sciences |
Bioethics | Biotechnology | Business Administration |
Chemical Sciences | Cliometrics | Computer Modeling and
Simulation | Computer Science | Contemporary/Cultural
Studies | Cybernetics | Decision Analysis/Decision Theory
| Defense/National Security Studies | Development | Disaster/
Catastrophic Risk Management | Economics and Econometrics
| Education | Engineering | Evolutionary Biology | Game
Theory | Gambling Studies | Generational Studies | Geography
| History | History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
| Information Science | Investing and Finance (Short-Term)
| Knowledge Management | Library Science (general) | Management
| Management Science | Media and Communications | Marketing
| Mathematics | Operations Research | Philosophy | Physical
Sciences | Psychology (general) | Psychographics | Statistics
(general) | Technology Policy | Tourism | Urban Studies |
See also ASF's list of Primary
Foresight/Futures Academic Programs for a list of places
where one can get an MS or a PhD in the primary foresight
specialties. The primary specialties are the main focus of
Strategic Foresight and/or Futures
Studies academic programs. Training in the secondary
speciaties is available in other academic programs.
4. Futurists. The fourth (and often overlooked)
category of organizational foresight is the futurists that
are associated with an organization (internally or externally,
formally or informally). Usually a distinct minority in any
organizational culture, you will nevertheless find (and be
able to easily identify) a wide variety of types of future-oriented
employees, specialists, and client base for any large organization.
Most of these individuals are not foresight professionals,
they just like thinking about the future, in a wide variety
of levels (personal, organizational, societal, global, or
universal), using any of the primary foresight skills, and
they comprise a range of different social and methodological
types. See ASF's definition of twelve
common types of futurist for our list of the
most common types of future-oriented thinkers. Each of these
types will impact your org in different ways.
This class of foresight has the most variability and the
least reliable social benefit. "Futurists" have
a bad name, or at least a very mixed record in both social
and organizational environments, as so many have been so very
wrong in the past, and as many of these passion- or vision-driven
individuals can be out of touch with organizational realities.
Nevetheless, it can be quite valuable to know who the futurists
are in your organization and your stakeholder and client base,
and to be able to work with the different types of futurists
in different ways. You may even wish to subsidize and grow
your futurist culture in certain places (e.g., annual retreats,
idea/transformation groups) and in certain functions (e.g.,
if you are an innovation- or creativity-driven org) but don't
expect too much from them. As Paul Saffo
reminds us, this fourth group has quite variable quality,
and is not necessarily seeking consensus or interested in
the organizational agenda. They also have a great variety
of individual, conflicting motivations. Only a special subgroup
(e.g., those trend followers who would engage in a prediction
market or business intelligence system) may be reliably valuable
to the organization.
Organizational
Foresight - Terms
Given the organizational foresight landscape and development
strategy we've described above, the terms we use to describe
ourselves and our process clearly matter. Some terms will
be much more effective than others for building a foresight
culture in corporate, institutional, NGO, and other organizational
environments, and for good reason.
Clearly "futurist" is a category
that describes a wide and highly variable collection
of folks, some of which are wild-eyed dreamers who
never bothered to learn (and thus never learned how to conditionally
break) the norms and conventions of society (e.g., "preconventional
futurists," see definition).
The term futurist can be adjectivized for the corporate world
(e.g., "professional futurist")
but this phrase still suffers from the amateurism and breadth
of definition of the noun class. Thus it remains quite
weak as a result and should be avoided. The term
futurist will always lead to snickers, particularly
from the more hard-nosed and evidence-driven folks in any
org. As a result, the term "foresight professional"
is a far better description for the driver of foresight work
in the organization. Not "foresight expert,"
as this term feels arrogant and incorrect (no one can be an
"expert" on the future). But everyone can strive
to be a "professional", and fortunately
there are now 50 years of foresight and futures knowledge,
methods, and theory to analyze and selectively use.
The term "futures" has a long
academic history to speak for it (as "futures
studies", "alternative futures," "futures
research", etc.) but this word and its associated
phrases have gained very little traction outside of
academia, even though they've been in use for over
40 years. These terms don't work well for
the corporate environment, which is usually agenda-driven
(e.g., seeking a particular "future"),
not consensus- or exploration-driven (e.g., promoting a plurality
of "futures."). While the term
"future" has had some success within the
U.S. military, we find that even in consensus-driven institutional
environments (eg., governmental work, community futures work,
the U.N., etc.) "futures" has had
only a small fraction of the penetration that "foresight"
and 'strategic foresight" have. We are
again led to conclude that the term "futures"
is weak organizationally and institutionally,
with the sole historical exception of academic settings. Even
in academia, however, the term "foresight"
is increasingly taking over. Most new MS and PhD degrees no
longer use "futures" but rather "foresight"
in their program descriptions (e.g., Technical U. of Lisbon's
MS in "Foresight, Strategy, and Innovation")
We have just scratched the surface of terminology issues
for our profession, but hopefully this will help you in your
work building an organizational culture that respects and
acts on foresight as much as it does on hindsight
and insight in this complex, accelerating
world.
Resources
Foresight and Futures-Related
People, Orgs, and Resources
See ASF's Global
Foresight Directory for a community-edited list
of foresight research centers, consultancies, NGOs, associations,
and other foresight resources and groups that you might associate
with or do an internship at if you are in a foresight/futures
academic program.
Edits or corrections to this page? Please
let us know.
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