Scenario building and alternate futures

Question 1

When did scenario planning as a strategic tool start?

Answer 1

In the 19th century with Clausewitz and Moltke, who were the first to talk about strategic planning.
However modern scenario planning began after WW2.

Question 2

Which two geographical centers were there for scenario planning and how did they differ?

Answer 2

The US, focusing on military strategies and France, focusing on guiding political and social planning.

Main difference in the beginning was that the US centre’s focus was global, whereas France focused on the socio-political foundations of the future of France itself.

Question 3

What is the US scenario planning school about?

Answer 3

It started at RAND, where game theory, computers for data processing and a need for war game simulation models inspired scenario planning.

Two ‘approaches’ was developed: The intuitive logics school (Shell), and the probabilistic modified trends school

Question 4

What was the probabilistic modified trends school?

Answer 4

It combines trend-impact analysis (a forecasting method that relies on the extrapolation of historic data) and cross-impact analysis (similar to the first, but a bit more complex)

Question 5

What was the French centre about?

Answer 5

It was a methodology for developing positive images (normative scenarios) of the future that could serve as a guideline for policy-makers - providing a basis for action.

Question 6

When did scenario planning become widely used in Europe?

Answer 6

After the oil crisis in 1973. Suggests that the adoption of scenario planning came with the increased unpredictability of the corporate environment

Question 7

Which kind of company most often used scenario planning in the beginning?

Answer 7

The big ones - might be that there where the only one with resources to experiment and need for new tools

Question 8

What is the Bradfield text about?

Answer 8

He compares the different schools of scenario planning: Intuitive logic (Shell), la prospective (the French) and the probabilistic modified trend school
2005

Question 9

What is the aim of scenario planning a.t. Postma and Liebl?

Answer 9

To create alternative images of the future

Question 10

Which three factors determine future developments a.t. Postma and Liebl?

Answer 10

Constants: structural factors that do not change (e.g. need for food)
Predetermined: changes that are largely predictable (e.g. demography)
Uncertainties: Outcomes that are known, but not when they arrive (e.g. economic growth)

Question 11

Why is it important to categorize factors in scenario planning?

Answer 11

Because it is the uncertainties that makes scenarios different from each other. In doing scenarios one plays out an uncertainty in each scenario as if they had occurred.

Question 12

What can scenario planning be used for?

Answer 12

It is well equipped to look at predetermins and uncertainties, but it leave the unknowns out of the discussion.
E.g. 9/11 and the war against terror could not be foreseen

Question 13

How does Shoemaker divide knowledge?

Answer 13

1. Things we know we know

2. Things we know we do not know

3. Things we do not know we do not know.

Scenario planning is good to deal with the first two, but have problems transfering type 3 into type 2

Question 14

Which three alternative scenario planning methods does Postma and Liebl suggest?

Answer 14

1. Recombinant scenarios: switching from scenario elements (drivers) to trends as the basic entities for scenario development.
2. context scenarios: introduce wild cards / unusual events
3. inconsistent scenarios: changing low probability/high inconsistency to high probability/consistency - the formerly ruled out scenarios are now possible, and can be included to formulate paradoxical complex trends

Question 15

What is the purpose of De Goede’s article?

Answer 15

To examine the relationship between the politics of risk and security practices, and how it has governing effects

Question 16

What is premediation about?

Answer 16

Telling what will happen, instead of what has happened. E.g. the medias.

Question 17

What is the common desire of risk assessment and premediation?

Answer 17

To imagine, harness and commodify the uncertain future.

Question 18

What is the difference between risk assessment and premediation?

Answer 18

Premediation is not about forecasting, but about mapping as many possible futures imaginable.
Risk assessment and the logic of risk is about predicting the future.

Question 19

Is premediation about predicting the future?

Answer 19

No it is about mapping the future. However some argue, that premediation is not about the future at all, but rather about enabling action in the present based on pictures of the future

Question 20

What characterizes the discourse of new terrorism?

Answer 20

Its ‘universalistic ideology’, its ‘world wide network of operational and preparative cells’, and the ‘nature and scale of the violence it employs’

One of the cultural narratives of this discourse is the ‘sleeper cell scenario’

Question 21

What is Suskind’s one percent doctrine?

Answer 21

That 99% certainty is not enough - preemtive action needs to be taken to secure the last uncertainty

Question 22

What does it mean to stress test a company?

Answer 22

To imagine the unexpected and apparently unlikely events, and calculate their effects on a company’s portfolio.

Question 23

What are stress testing, operational risk management and catastrophe insurance expressions of?

Answer 23

A bureaucratization and routinization of thinking the unthinkable

Question 24

What does it mean to think the unthinkable a.t. de Goede?

Answer 24

That something is necessarily left out of sight when doing premediation. He stresses that this kind of scenarios is often based on events that have occurred in some form before.

Thinking the unthinkable can be criticized for depoliticizing something, because it becomes an excuse for not talking about it + it offers a fantasy of being able to control it

Question 25

What is the economy of premediation?

Answer 25

The focus of premediation have resulted in a boom of new business practices (economy of desire?)
The problem with companies claiming to do risk management of e.g. terror is, that they turn suspicions and imaginations into actionable intelligence

Question 26

How is premediation political a.t. de Goede?

Answer 26

Some futures/scenarios are visualized over other, and the specific scenarios enable and constrain political decision-making in the present.
2008

Question 27

What is scenario planning about a.t. Chermack?

Answer 27

Exploring a variety of outcomes, a variety of potential answers and using them to create awareness and readiness. The premise is that things are ever-changing.
It is a method for including the reality of uncertainties into the planning process
2011

Question 28

Which three schools for strategy does Chermack talk about?

Answer 28

1. Rationalist school: assumes that there is one best solution (most used)
2. The evolutionary school: due to complex nature of behavior, a winning strategy can only be formulated in retrospect
3. The processual school: suggests org as a living organism, where processes can be created to enable learning from mistakes

Effective scenario building incorporates all three

Question 29

What is missing in existing scenario planning a.t. Chermack?

Answer 29

A presentation of the theoretical foundations, a clear guide for how to use scenarios, and a detailed guide for assessing the impact of scenario projects

Question 30

How is scenario planning political?

Answer 30

It makes futures an actionable present, create an economy and delegate responsibility

Question 31

What is a trend in scenarios?

Answer 31

Internal forces to the scenario that envoke change

Question 32

What is a driver?

Answer 32

External forces that shape the environment in which the scenario playes out

Question 33

What is an indicator?

Answer 33

Particular points in time when something changes, that one assumes will lead to something specific
Those are the things you monitor to allow prediction

Question 34

What is discontinuities?

Answer 34

They signify radical shifts in the structure

Question 35

Which three conditions are there for scenarios?

Answer 35

Consistency, causality and logic

Question 36

How does scenarios allow us to go beyond risks?

Answer 36

We go beyond risks as calculable, when we imagine the worst possible future. Premediation goes beyond risks, because it allow us to act on unmaterialized risks (?)

Question 37

What is the relationship between scenarios, risk and uncertainty?

Answer 37

Scenario planning is about addressing uncertainties, and uncertainties brings risks into existence.

A scenario analysis look at many potential risks, whereas a risk analysis would be more focused. However scenarios and risks are still connected, as scenarios seeks to discover risks related to a specific scenario.