Scenario Planning

INTRODUCTION

What if you are running late for work and you are to cross the highway to reach your office. You are faced with two options. First is to use the overpass where you have to go up the stairs, walk a good twenty meters across then come down the stairs on the other side. This option will take more time but is relatively safe. On the other hand, you can just try your luck and run as fast as you can while trying to evade the passing vehicles. This second option has its pros and cons. The advantage is that it takes relatively shorter time to cross the highway; however it also poses a great risk of being run over by the passing vehicles. Obviously, the first option is a better alternative for many. This conclusion, in which we are able to employ better judgment, is brought about by the use of scenario planning.

WHAT IS SCENARIO PLANNING

Scenario planning or often called scenario thinking is a strategic planning tool used to make flexible long-term plans. It is a method for learning about the future by understanding the nature and impact of the most uncertain and important driving forces affecting our world. Many of the regular methods for strategy development assume that the world in three to ten years’ time will not significantly differ from that of today and that an organization will have a large impact on its environment: they assume we can mold the future. Scenario planning however assumes that the future can differ greatly from what we know today.

Scenario planning provides alternative views of the future. They identify some significant events, the main actors and their motivations, and they convey how the world functions. Building and using scenarios can help us explore what the future might look like and the likely changes of actually living in it. The method employed in scenario planning is based on creating a series of ‘different futures’ generated from a combination of known factors such as demographics and plausible alternative political,...