Blog Post 5 - Unit 5 Discussion Board 1 - CS875: Futuring and Innovation - Colorado Technical University (CTU)

 Scenario Planning and Forecasting

               Scenario planning and forecasting are two natural and critical components to survival (Cloud Doing Good, 2023; Galt, n.d.). Both are used to anticipate future events, contingency plan, and require some introspection. Baxter (2019) describes scenario planning as a more casual process. It can be just imagining different weather conditions for a future trip, bill planning, etc.

Wade (2023) provided an overview on the importance of forecasting. He described Einstein as a great nuclear scientist, but not necessarily a great CEO as scientists focus more on the information available now. He also mentioned that generational values change, but also require the cumulative history that came before it. His approach to forecasting seemed to be more detail-driven, sometimes exhaustive, and structured than scenario planning.

Scenario Planning

Baxter described scenario planning as not merely predicting what nobody else has predicted, but rather about deriving other meanings/thoughts about things people already know about/have seen (Baxter, 2019). He also mentioned that thinking too far ahead in future planning is hard for some to think about, and often use as a reason not to do it. He suggested that people look six years into the future. Investing in a potentially rewarding scenario is how people should approach scenario planning.

Baxter also discussed how changing work environments and generational norms influence and require flexibility and adaptability (Baxter, 2019). For instance, he described a “BBC-style” and “Hollywood-style” approach to work where the BBC-style approach is more about long-term employment and roles, whereas the Hollywood-style approach was about targeted project teams that come together to achieve specific goals. He described the BBC-style approach as more authoritarian and top to pancake view. The Hollywood-style approach is more of the flexible environment suggested to operate in modern teams. Building some flexibility/portability into the work model certainly offers many benefits.

Advantages of scenario planning can be: risk mitigation, strategic flexibility, informed decision making, improved innovation, enhanced competitive advantage, and stakeholder alignment (Cloud Doing Good, 2023). Some of the disadvantages include: resource intensive, uncertain outcomes, assumption-based, and overemphasis on short-term scenarios. However, scenario planning is important and normal for most people to perform, and can be about simple things. Over-planning more than executing can become an issue for many people though.

Scenario planning is also divided into quantitative, operational, normative, and strategic management types (Cloud Doing Good, 2023). Quantitative scenario planning is common for best- and worst-case scenarios, limited number of variables that have great impact, and annual business forecasting. Operational scenario planning is more internal, and focused on short-term objectives. Normative scenario planning is somewhat preferable as it is concerned with achieving specific goals (i.e. working backwards from a goal), can combine multiple types of scenario planning, and is not necessarily always based on organizational goals. Finally, strategic management scenario planning looks at the overall products and services consumption environment, can be very high-level, and may even require futurist consultants.

Traditional Forecasting

               Systematically planning for the worst-, best-, and most-likely-case scenario seemed to be the main focus of traditional forecasting (Wade, 2023). Those who do forecasting most likely consider these main three factors in nearly everything from investments, consulting, sales/pricing offers, billing, contingency planning, etc. Wade discusses that many factors go into forecasting: tweaking numbers, timing of events, costs, contingencies, etc. Truly, a dedicated team is needed to maintain this on a regular basis, but there are some Artificial Intelligence tools that can help define, plan, and monitor these future planning metrics.

               Forecasting has its advantages and disadvantages, like anything else. Some of the advantages can be valuable insight gained, trial-and-error learning, and cost reduction (Galt, n.d.). Disadvantages may include: not always accurate, can consume a lot of time and resources, and can relatively expensive. Forecasting takes scenario planning a step further by incorporating highly-granular/detailed information from all available sources: past, present, and future. Where scenario planning may include top-level information like tomorrow it may rain, forecasting may describe every aspect of tomorrow’s weather, such as: barometric pressure, temperatures, fluctuations, time variables, air quality, real-weather feel, humidity, etc. to plan with better data.

Conclusion        

Sometimes, little-to-no information is available to forecast or make predictions from. However, incorporating scenario planning will serve the planners/stakeholders better than waiting to put out a preventable event. Starting with a rough plan, and then adding and refining the model over time is better than being stuck without a plan, or trying to plan too much. The future is not entirely predictable though, and building resiliency, contingency, and flexible/adaptive response plans (i.e. Plan A, Plan B, etc.) will give facilitators a big head start on dealing with the unknown. While education is somewhat under attack in the United States right now, many people can get great jobs by looking-up a lot of things, some situations and roles require immediate action that education provides. It would not be good for a surgeon performing critical surgery to have no scenario or forecasting done ahead of time.

References

Baxter, O. (2019, June 21). Scenario Planning - The Future of Work and Place | Oliver Baxter | TEDxALC. Retrieved from youtube.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAFGRGm2WxY

Cloud Doing Good. (2023, November 20). Scenario Planning: Advantages, disadvantages, and strategy. Retrieved from clouddoingood.com: https://www.cloudoingood.com/insights/scenario-planning

Galt, J. (n.d.). 3 Advantages and 3 Disadvantages of forecasting. Retrieved February 6, 2025, from johngalt.com: https://johngalt.com/learn/blog/3-advantages-disadvantages-of-forecasting

Wade, W. (2023, July 28). Scenario planning: thinking differently about future innovation. Retrieved from youtube.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-CccEPJJ7k