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The Foresight Proposition
Strategic foresight is based on the principle of planning from the future back to the present, not the typical approach of planning from the present towards the future. When we use the techniques and frameworks of standing in the future to understand where our organisation may be, we almost inevitably find that the “space” our organisation is in is very different from that occupied today.
This approach (which some call 'backcasting') focuses on developing a coherent and insightful view of how things might look in the future, unrestricted by how things look today. We typically look 10 years into the future, although in some cases 20 or even 50 years is more appropriate. Usually, the way the sector looks in the future is very different than in the present and this opens up new insights into the risks and opportunities that possibly are not being addressed.
Pick a point in the future far enough out that you cannot forecast - and then try and stand in that position (imagining what that ‘world’ might look like) - 10 years is useful!
When we truly ‘stand in the future” we are able to create a view that is unrestricted by the present. We are free to create scenarios of possibility and understanding. We are free to realise that the future is not pre-determined, something that we have to react to and cope with - but rather that it offers a range of possibilities, depending on our responses now to those possibilities.
We have the power to choose preferred futures through a very innovative approach - thinking the unthinkable - rather than have to suffer futures we do not want.
Source: Strategic Foresight - The Power of Standing in the future, Marsh et al, Crown Content, Melbourne, Australia, 2002 Foresight - what it is...
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