April 2006-Ongoing, in North Africa

This project entails running a series of inter-related strategies, and has involved over thirty separate workshops since its start, as well as seven training sessions. The project, however, was not planned as a single undertaking; rather it has organically grown with a series of separate contracts.

The initial mandate from a donor agency in one North African country was to help officials from the Ministry for Energy, Mines, Environment and Water to develop qualitative scenarios of the future, so as to allow them then to design an appropriate policy for the introduction of renewable energy sources. This was done using the Parmenides EIDOS™ software, notably including those tools that use systems dynamics and morphological analysis. The process required the inclusion of outside experts who then quantified the results. The local partners found the process so useful that they requested to be trained in the methodologies so as they could undertake such activities themselves. The demand for similar workshops and trainings rapidly spread elsewhere in the ministry: initially to those dealing with energy saving, then to those handling the inspection and control of environmental legislation, and then also to those handing Environmental Impact Analyses. At a meeting in Tunis, other colleagues from neighbouring countries then took cognisance of what had been done, and requested similar workshops, which are now in execution.

This process has demonstrated how important generating “enthusiasm” in the case studies can be in causing a particular approach to spread. Moreover, it shows the utility of choosing the case studies selected well: in the country itself, the renewable energy dossier enjoys a high political visibility and is the responsibility of a large ministry, which naturally helps generate interest elsewhere.
 

Jan.. 2011- July. 2011, in Europe and Asia

This project allowed the use of a wide palate of foresight and strategizing methodologies, as the client in question was keen to examine the future from as broad a perspective as possible. The project consisted of a series of eight workshops (six dedicated to three specific market segments), as well as a considerable amount of preparation and conclusion work, some with external experts.

The company in question faced a number of important strategic choices for a product as well as in three key market segments, and its CEO was unsure what path to take given a large number of uncertainties looming on the horizon. The whole process was kicked off by interviews with all the main actors concerned, as well as some outside experts. The interview material was fed back to the management team by means of document listing a series of quotes grouped by theme, but which were not attributed to any individual. This brought out the areas of consensus and divergence in the organisation, and served the basis for discussion in at least two of the workshops. The futures methods then used included developing:

• industry trend graphs on the projected evolution of markets related to their product (to find likely competitor future expectations);
• systems diagrams to identify core drivers;
• scenarios using a morphological analysis;
• a vision to imagine the ideal future (and how to get there starting from today);
• wild cards (“high impact, low probability” events);
• actor analyses to see how key actors could intervene over time;
• an Early Warning System (to warn in advance of changes emerging)
• a wind tunnel in which alternative strategies (including the vision) could be checked for robustness against the scenarios built.

An important part of the project management here was the choice of outside content experts so as to ensure that the thinking broke out of “business as usual”, as well as the constant provision of relevant information available from Open Sources about uncertainties uncovered in the workshops. Moreover, theEarly Warning System established has already produced a number of “hits” which have allowed the company to anticipate some of market changes they foresaw, and to act accordingly.

Jan. 2008- July 2008 in Europe

The organisers of the course decided that understanding security problems required the use of systems analysis and scenario planning. At the end of six of the eight course modules workshops were held with the course participants in order to generate systems map, and scenarios.

The process started with a workshop moderated by Adrian Taylor on future scenarios affecting energy security in the country concerned. This workshop had the double goal of allowing a discussion on the contents, as well as permitting a first introduction to futures thinking. As more and more modules were concluded with a scenario session, the emphasis shifted from Adrian Taylor moderating the sessions to workshop participants generating their own scenarios in working groups as they internalised the methodology and thinking. The starting point of each process was always to build a focus for the scenarios (“what is it about the future that is relevant for us”) and then to examine the driving forces that could affect this focus with a systems map. Scenarios would then be generated, using a form of morphological analysis to represent the different ways that the crucial drivers could develop. Finally the impact of the scenarios on the interests of the country concerned would be examined. In the process, a wide range of issues was covered, e.g. the future of transatlantic relations, the future of the Middle East, and the future of homeland security.

An important learning from this project was not to let the tools or methodology stand in the way of the content objectives. Hence, the dosing of when and where to use which tools or methods is always an important question, and should be carefully planned with the project responsible: this will also be important in the Singapore context.

Jan. 2007- July 2008, in Europe

The responsible agency decided that an attempt should be made to embed best practice in the intelligence cycle in a single tool. A consortium was created, which meant resources were not only available from within the eusg (then employer) but also from consortium partners.

Following a detailed briefing and brainstorming with the project responsible, an initial plan of action was drawn up. The stages in the intelligence cycle were analysed, and for each step a series of options developed: tools looked at included all those listed in the NSCS RFP, i.e. scenarios, systems dynamics, morphological analysis, Cynefin framework, AHP as well as various applications of Bayesian networks. The demonstrator was gradually created as a flash presentation, showing what should be done at each step of the intelligence cycle. An important conclusion was that the best route would be to try and create a plug and play environment where existing best of class tools could be fitted together rather than to try re-programming everything from scratch. The entire project was completed on time and within budget.

The project required adhesion to a tight deadline from a team that was geographically dispersed and not in a single reporting chain. Constant communication between project partners and with the client was an essential ingredient to success in this context, as was the ability to handle the political interests of the agency’s “end customers” who were stakeholders in their own right.

Oct. 2008- February 2011, in Asia

The project involved identifying existing best practices in turning in-coming information from sources which are available to the public into meaningful insights into future developments, and to executing case studies which apply the different types of tools and methods which can be applied for this.

As a result of this work, a much wider palate of foresight tools have been pooled, going well beyond the traditional scenario package. The methodologies have been put into a Handbook for practitioners in the Government, and also extensive trainings conducted to make sure that the techniques are well applied.

In accompanying the client’s own development, a number of new insights have also been generated for all involved.

Aug. – December 2009, in Europe and Asia

Having conducted over twenty initial interviews with staff of the organization, a working group of a dozen went through three workshops to develop, using the feedback from the interviews as a starting point of information for looking at future challenges and strategic options.  This phase was condensed into a space of a few weeks, and allowed a very high level of knowledge sharing to be reached within the organization.

However, it became apparent that there were some important information gaps which really needed to be filled. As a result, it was agreed to take additional time to conduct extensive research on the issues identified. This included a further round of over twenty interviews conducted in English, German and Spanish, as well as in Mandarin (the latter with help of www.intsights.net).  In a final workshop the material was reviewed and the implications for how the future may look was examined. The strategies were then refined, and a robust strategy was chosen as surviving particularly well in these futures. Next steps for operationalising the strategy were then decided upon.