Rehearsing The Future With Scenario Planning

< continued from page one

...programme or just wish to test your existing three-year strategy against the possibility of higher energy costs, a recession in the eurozone and a continued difficulty in accessing funding.

With a specific decision or question in mind, you can identify the driving forces — those that will dictate the success or failure of your strategy. Some of these you will be able to influence and others you will not. The most important and uncertain forces that will influence the success of your strategy become the foundations of perhaps three or four different scenarios. Building detail into these...

...different scenarios allows you to consider how the future might unfold and how your strategy would stand up.

Through thinking creatively, the idea is not to make forecasts of what is most probable but to identify what is plausible. This may mean suspending disbelief as you create a story that actually might happen.

Scenarios are not an end in themselves but are a tool to improve decision making. They provide a way for decision-makers to test out their strategies and to make them more resilient to future events. It is clearly best if the decision makers are also the architects of the scenarios. They can then recognise opportunities and threats common to each scenario and identify the strategies that are most likely to succeed in each case.

This simple-sounding, linear process can, of course, become more complicated. Time is required, hard data may need to be gathered and the views of people outside the core group can add greatly to the insights and the value of the exercise.


To discuss the drivers and scenarios in your business, contact Guy Rigby on 020 7131 8213 or email guy.rigby@smith.williamson.co.uk.


[i]Disclaimer
By necessity this briefing can only provide a short overview and it is essential to seek professional... continued on page three >

 

 

Advertisement

Advertisement