Foresight and futures thinking glossary
The most common foresight terms, explained in one or two sentences.
Published by Mirai · · Updated · 6 min read
- Weak signal
- A small, early hint of a possible change. Concept proposed by Igor Ansoff in 1975.
- Read the guide on this term
- Emerging trend
- A pattern that starts to form when several similar signals point in the same direction.
- Megatrend
- A broad, long-term force that affects almost every area, such as urbanization or climate change.
- Read the guide on this term
- Driver of change
- A factor that pushes a trend, for example a technology, a law or a demographic shift.
- Wild card
- An unlikely but high-impact event that changes the rules of the game. People also speak of "black swans".
- Horizon scanning
- The systematic search for signals and trends in the environment.
- Read the guide on this term
- STEEP analysis
- A review of change across five areas: social, technological, economic, environmental (ecological) and political. Variants such as PESTLE add the legal area.
- Scenario
- A coherent story of a possible future, used to explore consequences and prepare decisions. Scenario planning was popularized at Shell in the 1970s.
- Read the guide on this term
- Futures cone
- A visual tool that sorts futures into possible, plausible, probable and preferable.
- Read the guide on this term
- Backcasting
- A method that starts from a desired future and works backward to identify the steps that lead to it.
- Read the guide on this term
- Three horizons
- A framework that distinguishes the current system in decline, transitional innovations and the future system that is emerging. Developed by Bill Sharpe and the International Futures Forum.
- Read the guide on this term
- Futures literacy
- The ability to imagine and use the future to better understand the present. UNESCO promotes it as a learnable skill.
- Long-term thinking
- The ability to consider the effects of decisions over decades, even beyond one's own lifetime.
- Read the guide on this term
- Foresight
- The practice of exploring possible futures systematically to decide better today. Also called futures thinking or, in Spanish, prospectiva.
- Read the guide on this term