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--- future_fabulators:scenario_methods [2014-02-21 07:33] – [Scenario Methods] maja
+++ future_fabulators:scenario_methods [2014-02-26 06:04] – maja
@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 An overview a simple description of a scenario building process can be found in [[http://www.wired.com/wired/scenarios/build.html|How to Build Scenarios]] by Lawrence Wilkinson. Interesting [[http://www.openthefuture.com/2012/08/ten_rules_for_creating_awful_s.html| Ten Rules for Creating Awful Scenarios]] by Jamais Cascio, can be used as a checklist of what NOT to do in scenario building.
-"The paper to review all the techniques for developing scenarios that have appeared in the literature, along with comments on their utility, strengths and weaknesses. [...] eight categories of techniques that include a total of 23 variations used to develop scenarios. There are descriptions and evaluations for each." "Based on our review of the literature, we have discovered eight general categories (types) of scenario techniques with two to three variations for each type, resulting in more than two dozen techniques overall. There are, of course, variations of the variations."
+<blockquote>The paper to review all the techniques for developing scenarios that have appeared in the literature, along with comments on their utility, strengths and weaknesses. [...] eight categories of techniques that include a total of 23 variations used to develop scenarios. There are descriptions and evaluations for each." "Based on our review of the literature, we have discovered eight general categories (types) of scenario techniques with two to three variations for each type, resulting in more than two dozen techniques overall. There are, of course, variations of the variations."
   - Judgment (genius forecasting, visualization, role playing, Coates and Jarratt)
@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
   - Modeling (trend impact analysis, sensitivity analysis, dynamic scenarios)
-From [[http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/PolicyAnalysis/UKHigherEducation/Futures/Documents/current_state_of_scenario_development_FORESIGHT.pdf|The current state of scenario development]] by Peter Bishop, Andy Hines and Terry Collins, Foresight, Vol. 9(1)
+From [[http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/PolicyAnalysis/UKHigherEducation/Futures/Documents/current_state_of_scenario_development_FORESIGHT.pdf|The current state of scenario development]] by Peter Bishop, Andy Hines and Terry Collins, Foresight, Vol. 9(1) </blockquote>
-Another attempt at scenario typology is the [[http://www.infra.kth.se/fms/pdf/ScenarioRapportVer1_1b.pdf|Towards a user's guide to scenarios]] by Lena Börjeson et al classifies scenarios into three categories and six types:
+<blockquote>Another attempt at scenario typology is the [[http://www.infra.kth.se/fms/pdf/ScenarioRapportVer1_1b.pdf|Towards a user's guide to scenarios]] by Lena Börjeson et al classifies scenarios into three categories and six types:
   - Predictive (Forecasts, What if)
   - Explorative (External, Strategic)
@@ Line 30: / Line 30: @@
   - Integrating techniques: combining parts into wholes (time-series analysis, explanatory modelling, optimised modelling)
   - Consistency techniques: checking the consistency of scenarios (cross impact analysis, morphological field analysis)
+</blockquote>
-Curry, Andrew and Wendy Schultz (2009), [[http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/13-4/AE03.pdf|Roads Less Travelled]] in the Journal of Futures Studies, Vol. 13(4) made a comparison between different scenario methods: "Using four different scenario building methods: the 2x2 matrix approach; causal layered analysis; the Manoa approach; and the scenario archetypes approach. (...) This exploratory comparison confirmed that different scenario generation methods yield not only different narratives and insights, but qualitatively different participant experiences. (...) There is little in the literature which attempts to evaluate the different types of futures
+<blockquote>Curry, Andrew and Wendy Schultz (2009), [[http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/13-4/AE03.pdf|Roads Less Travelled]] in the Journal of Futures Studies, Vol. 13(4) made a comparison between different scenario methods: "Using four different scenario building methods: the 2x2 matrix approach; causal layered analysis; the Manoa approach; and the scenario archetypes approach. (...) This exploratory comparison confirmed that different scenario generation methods yield not only different narratives and insights, but qualitatively different participant experiences. (...) There is little in the literature which attempts to evaluate the different types of futures insight which emerge when different scenarios methods are used, the way in which choice of method might influence the types of conversations which are enabled by different scenarios processes, or the benefits and risks in using one approach over another. (...) To some extent, any scenario method can be completed as a desk-top research exercise. But creating scenario processes that effectively create change means creating participatory processes: scenarios create new behaviour only insofar as they create new patterns of thinking across a significant population within an organisation. So how engaging is each method, and what kind of thinking, conversation, and energy does each method produce in participants?
-insight which emerge when different scenarios methods are used, the way in which choice of method might influence the types of conversations which are enabled by different scenarios processes, or the benefits and risks in using one approach over another. (...) To some extent, any scenario method can be completed as a desk-top research exercise. But creating scenario processes that effectively create change means creating participatory processes: scenarios create new behaviour only insofar as they create new patterns of thinking across a significant population within an organisation. So how engaging is each method, and what kind of thinking, conversation, and energy does each method produce in participants?
+Each of these scenario methods appears to have distinguishing strengths. The 2x2 matrix approach produces four scenarios consistently focused on alternative outcomes for an issue at a specific scale. CLA generates conversations that dig down into the worldviews, mental models and cultural structures that inform how we perceive both issues and possible future outcomes. Manoa creates a diverse array of details across all levels of a possible future. Scenario archetypes guarantee consideration of outcomes across a specified set of worldviews. Yet none by itself is really a 'perfect', all-purpose approach. These differences underline the need for people who commission futures work to understand clearly what they are trying to achieve through scenario building, and to remain open to the methods that are most likely to be effective in reaching the desired outcome. (...) The primary lesson we have learned from this exercise as active practitioners is the value of mash-ups: combining and layering different techniques to enrich outcomes." </blockquote>
-Each of these scenario methods appears to have distinguishing strengths. The 2x2 matrix approach produces four scenarios consistently focused on alternative outcomes for an issue at a specific scale. CLA generates conversations that dig down into the worldviews, mental models and cultural structures that inform how we perceive both issues and possible future outcomes. Manoa creates a diverse array of details across all levels of a possible future. Scenario archetypes guarantee consideration of outcomes across a specified set of worldviews. Yet none by itself is really a 'perfect', all-purpose approach. These differences underline the need for people who commission futures work to understand clearly what they are trying to achieve through scenario building, and to remain open to the methods that are most likely to be effective in reaching the desired outcome. (...) The primary lesson we have learned from this exercise as active practitioners is the value of mash-ups: combining and layering different techniques to enrich outcomes. "
 Examples of (historical) scenario methods:
+=== 2x2 Double Uncertainty ===
 The scenario building exercise (step 1-6) in the [[prehearsal pocket guide]] is based on the 2x2 method by Peter Schwartz in The Art of the Long View. On [[http://scenariosforsustainability.org/recipes/schwartz.html|this page]] Schwartz summarises the scenario building steps.
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 <html><a href="http://lib.fo.am/_media/resilients/scenario-process-diagram.png?w=1000&tok=7eba6d"><img src="http://lib.fo.am/_media/resilients/scenario-process-diagram.png?w=1000&tok=7eba6d"></a></html>
+=== Causal Layered Analysis ===
 "Causal layered analysis is offered as a new futures research method. It utility is not in predicting the future but in creating transformative spaces for the creation of alternative futures. Causal layered analysis consists of four levels: the litany, social causes, discourse/worldview and myth/metaphor.  The challenge is to conduct research that moves up and down these layers of analysis and thus is inclusive of different ways of knowing." -Sohail Inayatullah in [[http://www.metafuture.org/Articles/CausalLayeredAnalysis.htm|CLA: poststructuralism as method]] and the [[http://metafuture.org/cla%20papers/Inayatullah%20%20Causal%20layered%20analysis%20-%20theory,%20historical%20context,%20and%20case%20studies.%20Intro%20chapter%20from%20The%20CLA%20Reader..pdf|CLA Reader]]
@@ Line 55: / Line 60: @@
   * cluster into themes
   * after reaching the bottom layer, pick a different myth/narrative and create a scenario by moving up the other layers, up to the new events and behaviours in 'litany'
+=== The Manoa Approach ===
 The [[http://www.infinitefutures.com/essays/prez/sandw/sld032.htm|Manoa approach]] "assumes that actual futures are generated by the turbulent intersection of multiple trends, and the interplay of their cascading impacts. Thus each Manoa scenario requires a base of at least three orthogonal drivers of change, preferably emerging issues or 'weak signals.' The design is best suited to creating scenarios 25+ years out, maximally different from the present: it aims to produce surprising scenarios that shake current working assumptions/ (...) Five steps:
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 <html><a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/content_images/fig/2730110302004.png"><img src="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/content_images/fig/2730110302004.png" width="400"></a></html> <html><a href="http://www.mepss.nl/tools/w07-fig1.gif"><img src="http://www.mepss.nl/tools/w07-fig1.gif"></a></html>
+=== Four Generic Futures ===
-Joseph Coates wrote "Today the question of what scenarios are is unclear except with regard to one point-they have become extremely popular. Many people see scenarios as forecasts of some future condition while others disavow that their scenarios are forecasts. Yet looking at scenarios that do not come labeled as forecasts or non-forecasts. It is difficult to tell them apart. The purpose of the scenario is at a meta level, since the scenario usually does not speak for itself in terms of its purpose." [[http://www.josephcoates.com/pdf_files/232_Scenario_Planning.pdf|More in Scenario Planning]]. Another early in depth overview of [[http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fhz95g00/pdf;jsessionid=D034F49912B794C5CCE293059B4BA299.tobacco03|How Companies Use Scenarios]] was written by Mandel and Wilson.
+<blockquote> Our use of "alternative futures" (or "scenarios") is usually within the context of helping an organization or community plan for and move towards its preferred future. (...) I have chosen to explain our use of alternative futures as though I were telling an interested community or organization what the components of a futures visioning process are in our understanding and experience, and how to conduct the various parts of an overall futures visioning process.</blockquote>
-<html><a href="http://horizon.unc.edu/courses/papers/Scenario_Figure2.gif"><img src="http://horizon.unc.edu/courses/papers/Scenario_Figure2.gif"></a></html>
+James Dator in [[http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/14-2/A01.pdf|Alternative Futures at the Manoa School]]
+Dator discusses in length the process of creating four generic futures (Continue, Collapse, Discipline and Transform) - as four types of stories in which all/most future scenarios can be classified.
-Michel Godet writes in [[http://en.laprospective.fr/dyn/anglais/articles/art_of_scenarios.pdf|The Art of Scenarios and Strategic Planning]]: "we strive to give
+<blockquote>
-simple tools that may be appropriated. However, these simple tools are inspired by intellectual rigor that enables one to ask the right questions. Of course, these tools do not come with a guarantee. The natural talent,common sense, and intuition of the futurist also count!"
+) Continue: What are the ways in which the system in which we find ourselves could continue as it is?
+) Collapse: What are the ways in which it could fall apart?
+) Discipline: What are the ways in which it could be directed?
+) Transform: What are the ways in which it could change altogether?
+Phrased this way, each generic image of the future presents a challenge to test the boundaries of one’s expectations and understanding of the system.
+</blockquote>
-<html><a href=http://loganadia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/fig208_01_0.jpg"><img src="http://loganadia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/fig208_01_0.jpg"></a></html>
+From Stuart Candy in his disertation [[http://www.scribd.com/doc/68901075/Candy-2010-The-Futures-of-Everyday-Life#|The Futures of Everyday Life]]
+=== Cone of Plausibility ===
 The "Cone of Plausibility, according to [[http://www.dtic.mil%2Fcgi-bin%2FGetTRDoc%3FAD%3DADA231618&ei=rdUCU-3QBIeSkwWG5oCYBA&usg=AFQjCNFbeM4KuYTqsIZaZYoaNholFliILg&sig2=ipuUxnViugB2ksDibwNYHQ|Charles W. Taylor]], “serves as an enclosure that circumscribes the thought process of the players. The strength of their thought process to build these scenarios and to hold them together as they proceed outward in time is a counterforce to the pressures of wild cards to disrupt the cone. Scenarios within the cone are considered plausible if they ad|here to a logical progression of trends, events, and consequences from today to a predetermined time in the future”
 <html><a href=https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8wsufwhnz1qz8vtso1_1280.jpg"><img src="https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8wsufwhnz1qz8vtso1_1280.jpg"></a></html>
+=== Morphological Analysis / FAR ===
 [[Morphological Analysis]] is a way to create one normative scenario, from which a number of critical uncertainties are selected and given a set of variables; by combining different variables several 'worlds' can be created, as stepping stones for a smaller set of branching scenario timelines. See also [[Field Anomaly Relaxation]].
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 <html><a href=http://www.swemorph.com/graphics/z_box2.png"><img src="http://www.swemorph.com/graphics/z_box2.png"></a></html>
+=== Other methods ===
+Joseph Coates wrote "Today the question of what scenarios are is unclear except with regard to one point-they have become extremely popular. Many people see scenarios as forecasts of some future condition while others disavow that their scenarios are forecasts. Yet looking at scenarios that do not come labeled as forecasts or non-forecasts. It is difficult to tell them apart. The purpose of the scenario is at a meta level, since the scenario usually does not speak for itself in terms of its purpose." [[http://www.josephcoates.com/pdf_files/232_Scenario_Planning.pdf|More in Scenario Planning]]. Another early in depth overview of [[http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fhz95g00/pdf;jsessionid=D034F49912B794C5CCE293059B4BA299.tobacco03|How Companies Use Scenarios]] was written by Mandel and Wilson.
+<html><a href="http://horizon.unc.edu/courses/papers/Scenario_Figure2.gif"><img src="http://horizon.unc.edu/courses/papers/Scenario_Figure2.gif"></a></html>
+Michel Godet writes in [[http://en.laprospective.fr/dyn/anglais/articles/art_of_scenarios.pdf|The Art of Scenarios and Strategic Planning]]: "we strive to give
+simple tools that may be appropriated. However, these simple tools are inspired by intellectual rigor that enables one to ask the right questions. Of course, these tools do not come with a guarantee. The natural talent,common sense, and intuition of the futurist also count!"
+<html><a href=http://loganadia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/fig208_01_0.jpg"><img src="http://loganadia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/fig208_01_0.jpg"></a></html>
-Anna Maria Orru and David Relan wrote [[:/resilients/scenario_symphony|The Scenario Symphony]] for the Resilients project, containing a whole range of scenario creation methods, including the dynamic [[:/resilients/from_pan_to_panarchy|panarchy]] and [[:/resilients/temporal model]].
+Anna Maria Orru and David Relan wrote [[:/resilients/scenario_symphony|The Scenario Symphony]] for the Resilients project, containing a whole range of scenario creation methods and techniques, including the dynamic [[:/resilients/from_pan_to_panarchy|panarchy]] and [[:/resilients/temporal model]]. It's interesting to compare it to the "Four Generic Futures" method above.
 <html><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/8480321093/" title="figure5 by _foam, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8505/8480321093_4d0379e220_c.jpg" width="800" height="354" alt="figure5"></a></html>
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 Backcasting starts with defining a desirable future and then works backwards to identify policies and programs that will connect the future to the present.
-However with retrocasting/retrotesting or scenario testing (as we also call it sometimes) we don't look at exclusively at a desirable future, but at different possible futures resulting from scenario building, and attempt to identify signals in the present that might point to the future moving in this or that direction.
+However with retrocasting/retrotesting or scenario testing (as we also call it sometimes) we don't look at exclusively at a desirable future, but at different possible futures resulting from scenario building, and attempt to identify signals in the present that might point to the future moving in this or that direction. This is perhaps similar to the work of Dator, Schulz and others related to the "four generic futures" (see above in scenario examples), known as deductive forecasting or [[http://www.infinitefutures.com/tools/inclassic.shtml|incasting]].