At the 2010 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, James Elbaor reports on the session 'Navigating the Future: Scenario planning for social entrepreneurs,' in the Huffington Post. Moderator: Rafael Ramirez, James Martin Senior Research Fellow in Futures, University of Oxford.
Rafael Ramirez led a workshop-style session challenging us to imagine alternative possible futures that we as social entrepreneurs will face. Governments and Fortune 500 companies do this exercise on a routine basis to build focused yet responsive strategies to guide their organizations. The following are key takeaways you can use to improve your organizations longer-range vision: 1. Always remember that the future is something that comes at you independent of your will.
2. There are 3 reasons to manufacture scenarios: To set the direction, make sense of a context you don't understand, and determine if you are working with the right values.
3. To use scenario planning, one must "manufacture" (not choose) potential scenarios that that best fit the purpose of the analysis and are the most challenging. Evaluate a question in the context of 2 scenarios max.
4. To start out scenario manufacturing, you must identify the central actor (i.e. your org): Look at the transactional environment around you (the people surrounding your org, suppliers, clients, investors), then look at the contextual environment (e.g. factors like the Health Care Bill) around the transaction. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-elbaor/catalyzing-the-future-at_b_546554.html
Rafael Ramirez led a workshop-style session challenging us to imagine alternative possible futures that we as social entrepreneurs will face. Governments and Fortune 500 companies do this exercise on a routine basis to build focused yet responsive strategies to guide their organizations. The following are key takeaways you can use to improve your organizations longer-range vision: 1. Always remember that the future is something that comes at you independent of your will.
2. There are 3 reasons to manufacture scenarios: To set the direction, make sense of a context you don't understand, and determine if you are working with the right values.
3. To use scenario planning, one must "manufacture" (not choose) potential scenarios that that best fit the purpose of the analysis and are the most challenging. Evaluate a question in the context of 2 scenarios max.
4. To start out scenario manufacturing, you must identify the central actor (i.e. your org): Look at the transactional environment around you (the people surrounding your org, suppliers, clients, investors), then look at the contextual environment (e.g. factors like the Health Care Bill) around the transaction. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-elbaor/catalyzing-the-future-at_b_546554.html
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