Scenario Planning: Understanding the Present, Preparing for the Future

When establishing a strategic direction and a set of priorities that will guide decision-makers, few techniques are as powerful as scenario planning. Scenarios are perspectives on potential events and their consequences, providing a context in which managers can make decisions. By contemplating a range of possible futures, decisions are better informed, and a strategy based on this deeper insight is more likely to succeed.

Scenarios help managers tackle risk, uncertainty and complexity. Scenario planning enables organisations to rehearse the future, to walk the battlefield before battle commences so that they are better prepared. Their value lies not in a prediction of the future, but in their ability to recognise and understand future developments, enabling managers to influence events.