Scenario planning
A method for building several plausible stories of the future and checking which decisions work in all of them.
What it’s for
It helps you decide when the future is uncertain, without betting everything on a single forecast that leaves the plan exposed if it fails.
Key elements
Critical uncertainties
Scenarios start from a few decisive factors about which there is no certainty.
Several plausible futures
Different from each other and believable, not a good, a bad and a normal one.
Robust decisions
Look for what works in every scenario.
An example
An organization decides what to invest in over the next ten years.
Scenarios don't predict the future: they prepare you for several.
How it’s done
Choose the critical uncertainties: what matters most and is least known.
Crossing them produces several different, plausible futures.
Each decision is tested in every scenario.
Applications in design
When to use it
Before a big decision that is hard to undo, such as launching a service, when the future depends on factors no one controls.
Avoid
Making a “good”, a “bad” and a “normal” scenario: in the end only the middle one gets looked at.
Don’t fall for it
Test each decision in two to four different scenarios and keep what works in all of them; don’t assign them probabilities without data.
1973
What the research says
Shell was working with scenarios that considered an oil supply disruption before the 1973 crisis; that helped it react when it came (Wack, 1985).
Connections
Builds on
Authors and works
- 1967
Herman Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener
Used scenarios to explore alternative futures in The Year 2000.
- 1985
Pierre Wack
Told how Shell used scenarios to prepare for the oil crises.
Sources
Original sources
- Kahn, H., & Wiener, A. J. (1967). The year 2000: A framework for speculation on the next thirty-three years. Macmillan.
- Wack, P. (1985). Scenarios: Uncharted waters ahead. Harvard Business Review, 63(5), 73–89. View source: Wack, P. (1985)
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