Organizational Memory
Future Scenarios card, MethodKit for Memory & Reminiscence
Card 19 of 66 · MethodKit for Memory & Reminiscence
  • ThemeStrategy & Direction
  • CardCard 19 of 66
  • Questions5 to explore
Strategy & Direction

Future Scenarios

Desirable, likely or dark paths ahead

Future scenarios are most useful when they are written down before the future they describe starts to arrive.

Scenario planning is not about predicting what will happen. It is about naming the different futures that are plausible and thinking through what each one would mean for the organization. The value is in the thinking, not the prediction, and that thinking is lost if it is never written down.

Organizations that have done scenario work often have it buried in a slide deck from a strategy retreat. The scenarios sit there, unreviewed, until a relevant change happens and the organization has to figure out how it relates to the earlier thinking. Capturing scenarios in a live document that can be updated as conditions evolve is much more useful.

For knowledge management purposes, the scenario work itself is valuable: who was involved, what the key uncertainties were, what signals the organization agreed to watch. That record helps the next team understand not just the scenarios but the process used to develop them.

What to capture

For this part of the company brain, what is worth writing down and keeping current. The goal is not a complete archive but a living record that new people can read and returning people can trust.

Named scenarios

The specific scenarios the organization has articulated: their names, the conditions that define each one, and the key difference from the current state.

Signals to watch

The early indicators that would suggest a particular scenario is becoming more likely, so the organization knows what to look for rather than waiting to be surprised.

Implications & responses

For each scenario, what it would mean for the organization's strategy, structure, or priorities, even if the responses are preliminary.

Last reviewed

When the scenarios were last revisited, whether they still feel plausible, and what has changed since they were first articulated.

Questions to explore

Use these on your own or in a group. There are no right answers, only better conversations.

  1. What are the two or three futures the organization has explicitly thought through, and are they still considered plausible?

  2. Which uncertainties matter most to the organization's future, and are those the ones driving the scenario work?

  3. What would need to happen for the organization to shift from one scenario to another, and who is watching for those signals?

  4. How does the organization's current strategy hold up across the different scenarios it has identified?

  5. When were these scenarios last reviewed, and who was involved in the original development?

Things to notice

  • Scenarios developed at an off-site often reflect the assumptions of the people in the room; if that group changes, the scenarios may need to be rebuilt rather than just updated.
  • There is a tendency to favor the optimistic scenario in planning, which can leave the organization under-prepared for scenarios it considered less desirable.
  • Scenarios become less useful the longer they go without review; an unreviewed scenario from three years ago may be more misleading than no scenario at all.