Scenario Planning

Scenarios are stories about the future. Good scenarios are plausible, challenging and rigorously constructed to address the most critical questions that decision-makers face. Scenarios are neither an end to themselves, neither absolute and exhaustive answers to future uncertainties, but a powerful management tool to improve the quality of executive decision making.

As an independent international, impartial, not for-profit organization, the World Economic Forum is ideally positioned to convene the high-level, international and diverse group of individuals necessary for forming robust Scenarios. The Forum intends to use Scenarios to communicate shared understanding of cross-industries issues and initiate dialogue and action internationally.

Scenarios are the creation of all who take part in the projects and go beyond the assumptions and perspectives held by any individual, interest group or organization.

Why Scenarios?
Scenario thinking provides a tool to focus thoughts around the future, to recognize, understand and challenge the assumptions and uncertainties related to the context we operate in and its evolution.

Developing and executing strategies relies on seeing and interpreting data to make successful decisions about the future. Scenarios bring an additional dimension in the understanding and interpretation of data by focusing on uncertain aspects of the future and on a range of seemingly distant forces that will evolve and might affect the overall environment. Scenarios are stories that describe different possible futures for the purpose of making better decisions in the present.

Leading global companies often engage in constructing large-scale scenarios to help formulate their business and investment strategies. In particular, scenarios can contribute to:

•  Raise awareness of the environment by helping business communities understand the complex interplay of underlying drivers and critical uncertainties, and increasing sensitivity to weak signals that precede a significant change in direction
• Provide impetus for action by providing users with common languages and concepts for discussing strategies across various businesses in the non-threatening context of possible futures
• Increase response speed to unexpected events by visualizing possible futures and rehearsing responses mentally, thereby raising the state of preparedness and agility
• Enhance a strategy’s robustness by identifying and challenging underlying assumptions, hence contributing to strong and pre-emptive corporate positioning
• Allow better strategic decisions by discovering and framing uncertainties and enhanced understanding of risks, prior to making substantial, irreversible commitments

Actually, moving from the Scenarios themselves to strategy development and action is one of the most critical phases in the Scenario thinking process. Tying Scenarios projects to specific cross-industries issues and clarifying early on with Forum’s Partners the agendas that Scenarios projects will contribute to, prevent the process from skidding to broad generalizations.

For more information, please contact: scenarios@weforum.org