Friday Scenario Warning: Check Your Ideology at the Door
In election season as in any other season, when making business decisions in conditions of uncertainty, ideologies can be deadly – and we all have them. Scenarios can help.
Scenarios
Global Trade and Logistics Scenarios
In mid-May, FSG principals facilitated a scenario-planning exercise for the Port Commerce Department of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. Under the guidance of FSG and our partner, Cargo Velocity, some 60 workshop participants devoted three days to exploring the strategic implications of five alternative future operating environments for maritime trade and logistics.
Types of Scenario Planning
by Charles Thomas
The term “scenario planning” encompasses a surprisingly diverse range of activities. While there are many potential schemes for categorizing these activities, the discussion below presents a fairly comprehensive view of them, and indicates – if imperfectly – the relationships among the various approaches.
Scenario Consultant Perspective: Friday’s Naive Two-By-Two Matrix
Paul Krugman’s column today induces us to create scenarios…it’s what we do.
Silos, seams and business model reengineering
“Silos” are an inevitable part of any organization; indeed, of any human activity. Even if you confine yourself to individual action, your own mind is thinking within certain categories, usually operating off a mental model that tells you what to expect – “If I do X, then Y will happen” – and what NOT to expect – Z or W or something completely different.
The Future Is Now: Reading VINs from Space
Possibly frightening scenario fodder culled from the papers over Saturday morning coffee…
Scenario Planning at FSG
What exactly does the Futures Strategy Group do? We help excellent organizations make better decisions under conditions of uncertainty — mainly through the use of scenarios.
Seven Wrong Things People Think About the Future
All along the untrodden paths of the future I see the footprints of an unseen hand. – Sir Boyle Roche
We who inhabit the Land of Scenariotopia (as a former colleague termed our little realm) think that the best way to predict the future is not to.
Revisiting “Types of Scenario Planning” and Old Blog Posts
With the launch of our new website, some of our legacy content has been moved to new places. Back issues of FSG Outlook can now be found in the Archives section of our new blog page (also conveniently named FSG Outlook).
McKinsey, Scenarios and Us
by Patrick Marren
The November 2009 issue of the McKinsey Quarterly includes an article by Charles Roxburgh entitled “The Use and Abuse of Scenarios.” It includes a number of good tips about scenario-based strategic planning, based on his experience in building scenarios over the past 25 years. It also highlights some important distinctions between his understanding of scenarios, and the way in which FSG has gone about creating and using them over the past few decades. And finally, it brings to the surface the urgent concerns of executives as they go about leading their organizations under uncertain conditions.