Scenario planning

Scenario planning is a technique used for strategy development in the face of uncertain or turbulent conditions. It involves postulating a range of likely alternative future scenarios and working out what strategies you would use in each one.

The basic process is:

1. Force-field analysis*: Categorise the various forces driving change in a particular situation (this could be market forces for a business or personal motivations for an interaction). What forces are there? How strong are they? What possible future states would each force push the situation towards? How are the forces balanced for and against a particular future state? 

2. Scenario creation: Imagine the potential future states that might come about through various combinations of the driving forces (what ifs). Aim for a reasonably large number (7-9). Give each scenario a name and try to describe it in as much detail as you can. What precise steps would lead up to this scenario (see Cause-and-effect mapping)? What changes would you notice as this scenario unfolded? What would it be like to be in this scenario? (See Cognitive interviewing). 

3. Scenario evaluation: Try to estimate the relative likelihood and impact of each scenario and rank them from most likely/most impact to least likely/least impact. At this point you might want to focus on the top few scenarios for the next stage but it can also be useful to pick one or two unlikely scenarios to play with too.

4. Scenario planning: Pick a scenario and inhabit it. What are your priorities in this scenario? What options do you have to act? What approaches could you take? What resources would you have? How would you know if your actions were effective? List and prioritise all the things you could do in this scenario. Now move on to the next scenario and repeat, and repeat.

5. Options analysis: Take the lists of possible actions for each scenario and compare them. 

   1. Are there actions that are helpful in all scenarios, or most of them? (No-brain actions)

   2. Are there actions that would be helpful in some scenarios that would have no effect in other scenarios? (Some-brain actions)

   3. Are there actions that would be helpful in some scenarios but harmful in others? (Full-brain actions)

*Traditional commercial force-field analysis is a little two-dimensional. It focuses only on forces for or against a single desired change to the status quo and ignores the fact that some of these forces may push in the direction of unintended change. It's worth considering not just enabling and constraining forces, but also diversionary forces.