Our Work:
Scenario Planning, Corporate Strategy, and Futures Analysis

Scenario Planning Up-Close

Scenario Planning is a strategy development tool designed specifically for business and other operating environments characterized by both rapid change and high uncertainty over future direction. Whereas traditional planning “assumes away” this uncertainty (often at great cost and risk to the practitioner), scenario planning explicitly considers and explores alternative future business environments. The goal of Scenario Planning is to create a “robust” set of strategies that will work across a range of plausible future business environments. Traditional business planning, by contrast, aims for a single set of strategies developed in response to a single “most likely” scenario that is almost certain not to occur. There are many problems with this latter approach—not the least of which are the risks and opportunities missed by not exploring a range of different scenarios.

Scenario Planning imposes a unique kind of strategic rigor by flushing out uncertainties and discontinuities that other methods often fail to identify. Scenario Planning forces planners to come to terms with the “pull” of emerging mission requirements, rather than default to a strategy determined by the "push" of current assets, capabilities and mission definitions. Scenario Planning will yield insight and direction on the full range of policy, organizational, operational, technological, and personnel decisions related to creating forward-looking strategy.

Scenario Planning is not a recent invention. As a formal planning methodology, it dates back to the 1960s, when it was used by the U.S. military to explore long-term challenges to national security. In the 1980s and 1990s, firms like The Futures Group innovated new scenario planning approaches designed to support a range of emerging corporate planning challenges related to globalization, rapid technological change, changing business models and, more recently, terrorism.

For more in-depth discussion about the different types of scenario planning and the value they provide, please follow this link.