COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM
Scenarios are a valuable, underused element of the strategist's tool-kit ? whether in corporate or public/non-profit environments. Scenarios are not predictions but an exploration of possible futures?their opportunities and challenges?that prepares us for effective response to unforeseen developments. The greater the uncertainty and volatility surrounding our business, market or policy domains, the greater the potential contribution scenarios can make to our sustained success.
All decisions, especially major ones, incorporate assumptions about the future. Most often those assumptions are hidden ones (like the underwater part of an iceberg); whether our decisions lead to success or not depends in good measure on how well the future matches our implied expectations. Using scenarios to unearth our implied expectations of the future and become alert to their vulnerability is critical to achieve success in a rapidly changing world.
The "Capstone Module: Imagine the Future of Business? week is designed to experiment with the potential of scenarios to improve strategic decision-making. Student will work in teams to develop scenarios for specific industries?as consulting teams helping a client in that industry understand and prepare better for an uncertain future. The scenarios will have 2030 as a time horizon and be presented in a "trade fair? style event at the end of the week?to the ?client' as well as to the broad ESADE community.
Course Learning Objectives
- Understand the power of scenarios to explore the future, navigate uncertainty and draw strategic insights that can generate competitive or policy advantage.
- Become familiar with a mainstream method for framing and development of scenarios.
- Gain hands-on experience in developing scenarios?by doing a set of 2030 scenarios for a specific industry/sector (pre-assigned for each team).
- Learn about using scenarios to extract implications that can guide strategy formulation and rethink (by applying the industry/sector scenarios to a specific pre-assigned company).
CONTENT
1. Monday Uncertainty and scenarios
What organizations have used scenarios for what?
Overview of scenario methods and techniques
Steps we will follow to develop scenarios
Starting points (e.g., megatrends)
Identifying premises and drivers of change
Goals for the day are (for the pre-assigned industry/sector) to:
Determine key metrics to assess it in 2030
Identify key drivers of change
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2. Tuesday Selecting key uncertainties
Exploring stretch range of uncertainty outcomes
Uncertainty end-points as building blocks for the scenarios
Synthesizing uncertainties into axes that will provide a framework for selecting scenarios
Goals for the day are to:
Select uncertainties
Establish end-points
Iterate on choice of axes
Tentative axes
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3. Wednesday Going from axes to scenarios
Criteria for choosing good scenarios
Criteria for choosing the set of scenarios
How to triage long list of potential scenarios and identify final set to be developed
The role of scenario paths and signposts
Goals for the day are to:
Finalize axes and long list of scenarios
Select final set of scenarios to develop
Sketch scenarios and 2030 metrics
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4. Thursday Using the uncertainties systematically as building blocks
Exploring the intersection of uncertainties and their impact on industry/sector metrics
Extracting indicators for strategic radar
Sketch out implications framework
Communicating scenario stories
Linking scenarios and strategy
[Clients will introduce their companies in the afternoon]
Goals for the day are to:
Finalize scenario paths and narratives/metrics
Shape each scenario¿s features (¿imagery¿)
Develop implications framework and apply to client company
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5. Friday Finalize presentation of scenarios¿in a way that combines both analytics (for rigor) and creativity (to make the scenarios come alive)
Prepare strategic implications for client (and revise after meeting, if necessary)
¿Future Fair¿ (where each group shows off its work) open in the afternoon
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Methodology
This is a consulting-style activity combining lectures and intensive workshop activity. Every day there will be a methodological lecture?matching the steps in the scenario development process scheduled for the day?and plenty of time for team work. The work will be done in teams; each team will consist of 8 people and will have a faculty advisor assigned. Each team will be assigned an industry.
The module will last one week and will have the pace of a very intensive consulting assignment. Monday will be more instruction-heavy and as the week progresses the teams will be working more and more independently. By Thursday each team will need to have developed a set of scenarios for their future of their assigned industry.
On Thursday afternoon each team will meet with their client (a concrete firm of the industry the team has worked). The role of the client will be to engage with the teams and guide them as they extract the strategic implications and insights that the scenarios can generate for the client's company. By mid-day Friday the teams will have to be ready for their stand in the ?fair' which will present in a triptych format: the key uncertainties around drivers of change affecting the industry; the 3-4 scenarios for 2030; and the implications for the client company's strategy (including possible decisions to be taken well before 2030).
Bibliography
There is no required pre-reading but these materials can provide useful background:
Art Kleiner's article http://www.strategy-business.com/article/8220 is a good summary of the thinking that led to scenarios (originally described in Pierre Wack's 1985 HBR articles).
A good scenario process introduction is P. Schoemaker's (1995) http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/scenario-planning-a-tool-for-strategic-thinking
The Shell experience with scenarios is summarized in Angela Wilkinson and Roland Kupers http://hbr.org/2013/05/living-in-the-futures/ar/1
The Evolving Internet (2025) scenarios and approach are summarized in a Strategy&Leadership article http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/10878571111095402
