FSG News:
Scenario Projects, FSG People, and Current Events

December 2004 FSG Update…Looking back on a busy year …

It has indeed been an eventful year. Early in 2004, FSG launched a planning project with the newly-established Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) for the Next Generation Air Transportation System. An inter-agency undertaking, the JPDO was established in 2003 to develop the National Plan to guide the air transportation system’s transformation. The JPDO is comprised of the Departments of Transportation, Commerce, Defense and Homeland Security, NASA, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Shortly after its conception, the JPDO created several working groups to lead individual work streams associated with the National Plan. The group charged with examining and understanding long-term forces for change in air transportation was the Futures Working Group (FWG). The Futures Strategy Group was contracted to direct a major scenario planning exercise. With the rest of the FWG team, we developed five scenarios to explore future air transportation risks and challenges. Two separate scenario planning workshops involving government officials, academics and private sector representatives were held earlier in the year to draft candidate JPDO strategies. This work has undergone refinement over the last several months. By the end of this year, the report will be delivered to Congress and this first, important phase of transformation will be completed.

The Voice of the Future Air Transportation Customer

One of the JPDO’s major responsibilities is reaching out to industry, consumer groups, and state and local governments to better understand critical consumer and market issues as they affect choices for future policies and investments. Last October in Boulder, CO, FSG facilitated a three-day workshop for executives of air transportation “users”: airlines, travel companies, businesses with major travel needs, regional airports, and travel associations, among others. At JPDO's Transportation Users Futures Workshop, participants used the JPDO scenarios to explore changing consumer needs and expectations across different economic, technological, regulatory and business environments. They also were invited to critique draft JPDO strategies; this input proved to be extremely valuable. Participating companies in this exercise included Toyota, UPS, LockheedMartin, Raytheon and numerous travel organizations. For more information on the JPDO, check out their website at www.jpdo.gov.

FAA Spectrum Workshop

New safety, security, navigation and technology development in the air transportation arena will doubtless have an impact on future requirements for radio spectrum. What those requirements might look like was the focus of a day-long workshop directed by FSG and the JPDO’s Futures Working Group for the FAA Spectrum Office in November. More than 40 representatives of the FAA, NASA, Homeland Security, the Defense Department and other federal agencies participated in the exercise. The results of this work will help inform the U.S. negotiating position in anticipation of the 2007 International Civil Aviation Organization’s Aeronautical Communications Panel, where common global solutions to communications solutions will be pursued.

The USCG’s Project Evergreen: Continuous Strategic Renewal

Early in 2004 the Futures Strategy Group completed a scenario-planning engagement for the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) as part of the service’s long-term planning and strategic renewal process known as “Project Evergreen”. In a speech earlier in the year, USCG Commandant Admiral Thomas Collins described Evergreen as an effort “to break free intellectually from ‘the tyranny of the present’ and think critically about what it will take to continue to be successful in a variety of ‘futures’ that may come to pass”. Scenario planning was an important tool for imagining these maritime futures. “Through Project Evergreen,” Admiral Collins continued, the Coast Guard is “using scenario planning to create a forward-looking agenda that will guide our service through major changes currently underway, as well as others not yet on the planning horizon”. The USCG is now executing on the Evergreen mandates and institutionalizing this kind of thinking and awareness throughout the organization in order to create “continuous strategic renewal”.

NASA Langley Research Center: NASA LaRC is the senior research center of NASA Aeronautics with responsibilities for leading edge high-risk technology and systems developments for future aviation systems. LaRC engaged The Futures Strategy Group to support development of a strategic framework that will align their strategies with those being developed at the JPDO for the next generation air transportation system.