Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
FORESIGHT Marco Antonio López Ramírez A01252711, Objective, What?,…
FORESIGHT
Marco Antonio López Ramírez A01252711
Foresight
Capacity to think systematically about the future to inform decision-making today.
State of mind that determines how you think about the future
Forecasting is to:
Look more broadly to see what is changing
Think more deeply obout the implications of change
Decide what to do today
Foresight approaches allow organisation to explore their potential futures and begin understand how external imperatives and challenges may play out over time
Closely related to the term
futures
Importance
Allows new strategic options to emerge
It expands perceptions of future options
Business will not be more of the same
Helps to recognize change
Enhances the operational context
Develops proactive responses to change
History of Foresight
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s-1990s
2000s
Present
Emergence of foresight jobs
1 more item...
Organizational Ability
The implementation of foresighr has in many firms led to the creation of organizational routes that facilitate the develpment of future insights.
1 more item...
Methods & Processes
In the 80s markets became increasingly saturated. So, firms that were seeking for superior positions in their markets needed to upgrade their business and corporate tools and new feresight methods emerged.
Methods as Roadmapping and Continuous environmental scanning emerged.
Age of Scenarios
The field of Corporate foresight saw a variety of successful applications of its methodological and processsual repertorire.
In particular the aplication of Royal Dutch / Shell
The success of this technique was also used by Motorola, General Electric and United Parcel Service.
Foundation of future institutes
For example the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
Birth of the FORESIGHT Discipline
French perspective school
Favored lean methods that could be applied collaboratively directly by the decision makers
Herman Kahn at RAND Corporation
Sophisticated methods and based in the idea that expert analysis would engage in foresight work
About Foresight
Short Term vs Long Term Thinking
Short Term
Allows people to remain in their comfort zones
Dangerous when there is a disruptive change
Not innovative
Long Term
Approached by Foresight
10 to 20 or more year time
Helps to
Move beyond boundaries
Challenge the status quo
Facilitate thinking
Move from "what might" happen to "what is"
"However good our future research may be, we shall never be able to escape from the ultimate dilemma that all our knowledge is about the past, and all our decisions are about the future."
Foresight Principles
Future
Does not exist yet
Is not predetermined, inevitable or fixed
Is uncertain and not predictable
There is more than one
Can be influenced by action or inaction today
We are responible of future generations
Foresight Framework
Developed by Dr Joseph Voros
Structured and integrated process for using foresight in strategy development
Three major activities
Environmental scanning
Foresight Infused Strategy Development
Strategic Thinking
Taking action today
Other ways of describing how to use foresight
Avril Horton (1999)
A successfull foresight process
Peter Bishop and Andy Hines (2006)
Thinking about the future
Wendy Schultz (2006)
Kay activities of integrated foresight
Michael Keenan (2007)
Five mental acts for Foresight
About Foresight and Strategy
Rethinking conventional planning
Conventional Strategic Planning
Defined as a process that includes
Strategic thinking
Decision taking for the future
Documenting and monitoring
Scanning
Environment for change
Tends to focus on tangible plans rather than on the thinking processes that informs the plans
Planning becomes a whole game, that encompases:
Thinking about the future
Writing plans
Monitoring
Reporting plans
Issues with conventional strategic planning processes:
Assume tommorrow is going to be more of today
Don't explore the long-term
Lack of flexibility
Rely heavily on qualitative data
Don't challenge the organisational assumptions
Don't take into account staff hopes, fears and believes of the future
The Future Doesn't Blong to Senior Managers Alone
Foresight involves moving strategy beyond the realm of senior managers
Value is placed on seeking multiple inputs into strategic thinking and challenging rather than reinforcing deeply held assumtions about the future
Including staff requires a time for preparation and time to gather information and run processes
Including the staff will result in a more effective implementation
"Strategy without people is equal to strategy without future"
How?
Providing Staff
Opportunities to share views
Opportunities to hear about changes affecting the organisation
Scheduling regular "thinking workshops"
Involve people in strategy workshops related to their roles and expertise
Foresight Infused Strategy
Environment Scanning
Seeks information about change to provide input into the other stages
Looks forward to identify a wider range of information about change
Strategic thinking
Developing a deeper understanding of change to inform identifying, imagining, and understanding future environments
To make better informed decisions about action to take today
It is related to being proactive
Defining a preferred future
Take a decision about the strategic direction
Make a conclusion about which is the best possible outcome
Strategic Planning
Documenting action, measures and accountability and ensuring that action is completed
Ensure that people know what the preferred future is and how they can contribute
"The higher the gloss, the lower usefulness"
Foresight Methods
Methods
Analytic Methods
What seems to be happening?
Looking for patterns across often disparate information sources and presenting them in ways that work for the organisation.
Examples
Trend analysis
Analyze those aspects that can change the ecosystem at a number of levels.
Emerging Issues Analysis
Seeks to identify change at the periphery that have not yet emerged fully. Here, attention is paid to the weird and the wacky and to the seemingly ridiculous.
Forecasting
Quantitative
Little value beyond the short term future. Include extrapolation and econometric approaches, for example megatrends.
Qualitative
Focuses on taking into account the blidspots in the projections, particulary where entirely new paradigns energe quickly.
Cross Impact Analysis
Explores the impacts of events and trends on each other. These must be the ones that are considered with most impact on the future.
Interpretive Methods
What is really happening?
Challenge categories of analysis to question and test the meaning of the data analysed, and to find how the organisation might respond.
Examples
Depth and layers
Pop
Superficial and media frendly
Problem oriented
Practical focus, addresing issues of immediate concern.
Critical and epistemological
Looks at deep assumptions, going from the obvious to the superficial.
Causal Layered Analysis
By Sohail Inayatullah (2004)
Aims to create spaces in which alternative futures can be explored
2 more items...
Prospective Methods
The most critical and creative step in strategy development.
What if?
Exploring the future, test strategies and take risks without having to live the consequenses. Important to use the output to strengthen our decision making.
Examples
Visioning
Participatory approach, and it surfaces the hopes, fears and beliefs of individuals about the future.
Scenario Planning/Learning/Thinking
"Focuses too much on 'out there' at the expense of 'in here'".
3 more items...
Input Methods
What is going on out there? or What is happening?
Focuses on the collection of high quality information
Examples
Delphi
Used where a high degree of credibility is required and where uncertainty is involved.
Environmental scanning
Systematically exploring and interpreting the external environment to understand the nature of trends and drivers of change that impact the organisation.
"Both the choice of the method and the way it's applied is critical to achieve meaningful outcomes."
Foresight Diamond (Popper 2008)
Ilustrates the wide range of methods available
Objective
What?
Consists of:
These three related to:
Consists on four aspects:
REFERENCES
Future Station. (2023). Future Preparedness Through Foresight.
https://futurestation.ro/future-preparedness-through-foresight/
Rohrneck, R. (2021). Historical background of Corporate Foresight.
https://rene-rohrbeck.de/2021/02/24/historical-background-of-corporate-foresight/
