The futures cone: possible, plausible, probable and preferable
The futures cone is a visual tool to organize the futures we imagine, from the possible to the ones we prefer.
Published by Mirai · · 5 min read
The idea
Picture a cone that starts in the present and opens forward. The further ahead we look, the wider the range of futures. The futures cone, proposed by Trevor Hancock and Clement Bezold in 1994 and later popularized by Joseph Voros, sorts that range into layers.
Four types of future
- Possible: everything that could happen, even if it seems unlikely or absurd today.
- Plausible: what could happen given what we know today about how the world works.
- Probable: what is most expected if current trends continue.
- Preferable: what we want to happen. It is a question of values, not data.
Why it is useful
The cone helps us avoid confusing the probable with the desirable, or the improbable with the impossible. Many decisions are made looking only at the probable future. The cone reminds us there are more options, and that the preferable future has to be built.
An example
Start from a signal: a market stops taking cash. A probable future: digital payments become the norm in markets. A plausible one: community networks emerge to teach people how to use them. A possible one: cash comes back strongly after a major failure of digital systems. And the preferable one depends on each community: perhaps one where nobody is left out for not having a phone.
Try it
Take a recent signal and write one future for each layer of the cone, 10 years out. Then ask what would have to happen to move toward the preferable one, and which decision today would make it more likely.