Future scenarios: what they are and how to build them
A scenario is a coherent story of what the future could look like. It does not aim to be right: it helps you prepare for several possibilities at once.
Published by Mirai · · 6 min read
What a scenario is
A scenario is a plausible, coherent story of a possible future, built from the signals, trends and uncertainties of the present. It is neither a prediction nor a wish: it is a tool to explore what would happen if things take a certain direction.
You work with several scenarios at once, usually three or four, so you do not bet everything on a single story and can find decisions that work in more than one future.
Where it comes from
Scenario planning took shape after World War II, with Herman Kahn's work at the RAND Corporation. In the 1970s, Pierre Wack's team brought it to Shell, where its scenarios helped the company prepare for the 1973 oil crisis. Since then, governments, cities, companies and nonprofits have used it.
A simple method: two uncertainties, four scenarios
One of the most common methods crosses two key uncertainties to get four scenarios:
- Pick a question and a horizon, for example: "what will buying food in my city be like in 2040?"
- Gather signals and trends related to that question.
- Identify the two uncertainties with the most impact and the least predictability, for example: "will water be scarce or sufficient?" and "will shopping be mostly digital or in person?"
- Cross them on two axes: each quadrant is a scenario.
- Write each scenario as a short story with a memorable name, and describe an ordinary day in that future.
What to do with scenarios
Scenarios are for conversation and decisions. Some useful questions:
- Which signals today would suggest we are heading toward each scenario?
- Which decision today works well in every scenario?
- What risk shows up in one scenario that we are not seeing?
- Which one do we prefer, and what would it take to move toward it?
Common mistakes
- Making a good, a bad and an in-between scenario: it is better for each to be different, not better or worse.
- Choosing as uncertainties things that are actually already clear trends.
- Writing scenarios so general that nobody recognizes themselves in them.