How to work with futures:
Strategic foresight in practice

The future can seem like this abstract, far-off thing. We love imagining it, but predicting it seems impossible. Every strategy rests on assumptions about the future: what people will need, how markets will develop and what will matter next. Some of those assumptions hold up, others tend to become outdated as things change.

Importantly, in foresight, we work with futures in plural. Strategic foresight helps us examine them. By exploring different possible futures, we can spot emerging changes, challenge familiar ideas and make more informed decisions today.

There are several ways to put strategic foresight into practice:

Scan for change. Look beyond your immediate sector for emerging trends, shifting behaviours and early signs of change. Horizon scanning is what this is called.

Explore possible futures. Develop scenarios that consider how these changes could unfold and interact. One way is through scenario planning.

Challenge your strategy. Examine where your plans might succeed, struggle or need adapting across different futures. Wind-tunnelling your strategy through what you think the futures could hold.

Connect insights to action. Decide what to do now, what to monitor and which options to keep open.

The way we think shapes the choices we make. If we want different outcomes, we need to question the thinking behind our current approach.

For organisations, that means asking questions that everyday work often leaves little room for. What are we taking for granted? Which changes are we overlooking? Would our strategy still make sense if the conditions around us changed?

The approach should fit the questions you face. Curiosity, creative thinking and careful analysis all have a part to play.

Much of the value comes from working through these questions together. People bring different experiences, notice different signals and disagree about what matters. Exploring those differences can reveal blind spots and open up better choices.

Give unfamiliar ideas time before dismissing them, ask whose perspectives are missing and revisit your assumptions as circumstances change.

You will still face uncertainty. But you can develop a clearer sense of what is at stake, where you have influence and which futures you want to help create.

Foresight and futures studies more broadly is half art, half science. We use our imagination and our analytical capacity to anticipate and prepare. Exciting, right?

Welcome on a journey into the futures!