rethinking strategic planning a futures perspective 1195972053658615 4
TRANSCRIPT
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STRATEGIC PLANNINGREVISITED: A FUTURES
PERSPECTIVE
Maree Conway Association of University Administrators Conference April 2007
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A BIT ABOUT ME
• 25+ years as a manager in higher education and TAFE, in a range of institutions in Brisbane and Melbourne, and in a range of jobs (studentadmin, faculty admin, secretariat, policy, planning, quality andstatistics). Almost 15 of those years at Swinburne University - in six
jobs.
• Five internal re-structures at Swinburne led me to foresight in 1999,when I established a Foresight and Planning unit that lasted until 2004.
• After the demise of foresight at Swinburne, I moved to VictoriaUniversity in March 2005 to pursue futures work (as well as quality,planning, statistics and surveys).
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A BIT ABOUT ME
• Enrolled in Masters in Strategic Foresight at Swinburne.
• Planning a PhD on the conflicting and converging images of the future
held by academics and administrators in universities.
• Consulting work (scenario planning) internally at Swinburne and VU, for government (eg DEST, Centrelink) and business organisations (eg GoldCoast Water).
• Practitioner focus - how to use futures approaches in strategydevelopment processes in universities and organisations.
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A BIT ABOUT ME
• My other life is working with ATEM:• to build ATEM‟s profile in the sector; • to develop the emerging profession of tertiary education administration and
management; and• to build understanding of administrators and managers about what it means to be
“professional‟.
• What I‟ve learned: • people find it very hard to „let go‟ of deeply held assumptions and ways of thinking
and operating (ATEM has spent 30 years struggling with its identity); and
• passion and commitment don‟t matter if there isn‟t a shared view about what the Association‟s core business is, and where the Association is going in the future.
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TODAY
• Learning Outcomes
• To appreciate the essential differences between strategic thinking,strategic decision making and strategic planning.
• To use an integral model to design strategy and planningframeworks.
• To explore how futures approaches may be appropriate in your
institution (lessons from practice).
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TODAY
• Will be working fast today and covering a lot of material to provide anintroduction to a futures perspective on strategic planning.
• I work in a university and use them as my reference point, but applies toall types of educational institutions.
• Please interrupt and ask questions as we go along.
• Participate as much or little as you want.
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TODAY
1. Strategic Planning? Or Strategy Development and Implementation?
2. Futures• What is Futures?
• Why futures?• Integral Futures
3. Futures in Strategy Development & Implementation
4. Building a Strategic Foresight Capacity
5. But … this wouldn‟t work in my institution! Or would it? Lessons fromPractice
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STRATEGIC PLANNING?
OR
STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT ANDIMPLEMENTATION?
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WHAT IS STRATEGIC PLANNING?
• What are we talking about?
• Your definitions?
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STRATEGIC PLANNING
• Strategic planning is not about planning strategically.
• Strategic planning is the process of documenting an plan toimplement and monitor an agreed strategy.
• Just semantics? Perhaps, but …
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STRATEGIC PLANNING
• “Planning lacks a clear definition of its own place in organizations”(Mintzberg, 1994:5).
• “It may well be that the typical strategic planning exercise now
conducted on a regular and formal basis and infused with quantitativedata misses the essence of the concept of strategy and what is involvedin thinking strategically” (Sidorowicz, 2000:2).
• “While the need for planning has never been greater, the relevance of most of today‟s planning systems and tools is increasingly marginal”(Fuller, 2003:2).
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So, is what we commonly understand
to be strategic planningthe whole game?
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STRATEGIC PLANNING?
Strategic PlanningTaking Action
How will we do it? Actions
No … it‟s the last step …
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STRATEGIC PLANNING?
Decisions
Strategic Decision Making
Making choices
What will we do?
The Vice-Chancellor usually ends up making the
ultimate strategy decision.
But … what informs that decision?
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STRATEGIC PLANNING?
Strategic Thinking
Generating Options
What might happen?
Options
Strategic thinking is probably the least defined and
least well understood part of the strategy process.
What informs strategy at your institution?
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STRATEGIC PLANNING?
• Strategic planning is but one of three interdependent
and overlapping steps in the development andimplementation of strategy.
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STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT ANDIMPLEMENTATION
Strategic ThinkingGenerating Options
What might happen?
Strategic Decision Making
Making choices
What will we do?
Strategic Planning
Taking Action
How will we do it?
Options
Decisions
Actions
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STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT ANDIMPLEMENTATION
• Differentiating among the three steps is important.
• It is simpler to use „strategic planning‟ but, it blurs the boundaries
between the three steps.
• Each step has a distinct focus.
• Each step needs different methods and approaches.
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STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT ANDIMPLEMENTATION
• Strategic thinking: synthetic, intuitive, inductive, deals with incompleteinformation
• Strategic decision making: options, choices, decisions, destinations
• Strategic planning: analytical, logical, deductive, staying on track
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REFLECTION: STRATEGY DEVELOPMENTAND IMPLEMENTATION
• Can you describe your institution‟s strategic thinkingprocesses?
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STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT ANDIMPLEMENTATION
• So, while it is more words and harder to say quickly ...
• strategy development and implementation is a moreaccurate term for what we are talking about (SDI?)
• But, where does a futures perspective come into it?
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FUTURES AND STRATEGY
Strategic Thinking
Generating Options
What might happen?
Strategic Decision Making
Making choices
What will we do?
Strategic Planning
Taking Action
How will we do it?
Options
Decisions
Action
Futures
Approaches and
Methods
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FUTURES:
WHAT IS FUTURES?
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UP FRONT, SOME TERMINOLOGY
• Foresight: an often unconscious individual capacity tothink about the future.
• Strategic Foresight: an organisational foresightcapacity.
• Futures: the broad academic field now developingglobally; interdisciplinary and inclusive in its approach.
• Futurists: those who work in futures, either as
academics, consultants (outside organisations) and aspractitioners within organisations.
• Scenario planning: a futures methodology.
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FORESIGHT?? FUTURES??
• „Foresight‟ is the capacity to think systematically about thefuture to inform today's decision making. It is a capacity thatwe need to develop as individuals, as organisations, and as asociety.
• 'Futures' refers both to the research, methods and tools
that are available for us to use to develop a foresightcapacity, and to the field in which futurists work.
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FUTURES STUDIES
• Futures Studies is an emerging academic discipline focusedaround the development of alternative futures:
• to assist people in choosing and creating the most desirablefuture, using any combination of the past, present knowledge,
imagination, desires and needs,• to highlight that individuals, groups, cultures etc., are not set on adeterministic path to a single unitary future but, by using their powers of foresight and decision-making, can select from a widerange of future trajectories and outcomes, and
• to explore the unanticipated, unintended and unrecognisedconsequences of social action.
Source: http://www.cambridgeuniversityfutures.co.uk/home.asp
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FUTURES PRINCIPLES
• There is always more than one future.
• The future is not pre-determined – we have alternatives.
• The future is not predictable – we have choices.• The future can be influenced – there are consequences of our choices and action today for future generations.
• Hence, we have a responsibility to act wisely in thepresent.
Adapted from Amara, and Voros
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A MESSAGE FROM FUTUREGENERATIONS…
• You are alive at a pivotal moment in humanity‟s development. You aremaking some of the most important choices in human history. Your era is marked by positive and negative potentials of such newness and
magnitude that you can hardly understand them. Through your publicpolicies and daily lives, the people of your era have tremendous power to influence the future course of humanity‟s story. We strongly careabout your choices, of course, since we benefit or suffer from themquite directly. We live downstream from you in time; whatever you putinto the stream flows on to our era.
Allen Tough, A Message from Future Generations,
http://www.wfs.org/fgtough2.htm
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• We cannot „know‟ the future in the same way that we „know‟the present.
• There are no future „facts‟.
• Futures work explores ideas about the future, not the future
itself .
FUTURES PRINCIPLES
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FUTURES TIME
• Near Term Future - Up to one year from now
• Short Term Future – 1-5 years from now
• Mid-Term Future - 5 - 20 years from now
• Long Range Future - 20 - 50 years from now
• Far Future - 50 plus years from now
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FUTURES TIME
• From our vantage point of the present, we interpret the past,and we anticipate the future.
• But, we have blind spots.
• We can deny past acts, and we can avoid/negate future acts,depending on our perspective in the present.
• We need to understand our worldview and how we see andmake sense of the past, present and future.
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FUTURES PUSH AND PULL
Technology, Demographics,
Economics, Science etc
PRESENT Ideas, Images, Hopes, Fears
FUTURE
CONSTRAINTS
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THE FUTURE AS A STRATEGIC LANDSCAPE
The ‘self’
journeys across the chessboard to the mountain,which lies in the medium term future
The strategic objective: • A compelling, relevant future • BHAG—“Big Hairy Audacious Goal”
• A concrete, specific goal
• A challenge, but achievable
The strategic environment: • Strategic implementation and tactics • Threats and opportunities • Actions of other strategic actors • Driving forces • Mapped and understood using scenarios
The purpose of the organization• A “future-focused role image”
• Not completed or “used up”
Strategic identity: • Current reality • Self -knowledge• Strengths and weaknesses • Values • Preferences and experience
‘The Chessboard’ — Issues and challenges we are likely to face
‘The Star’ — Our enduring and
guiding social role
‘The Mountain’ — What we hope to achieve
‘The Self’ — Our values and attributes as a strategic player
“Star, mountain, chessboard, self” image © 1999
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TYPES OF FUTURES
Potential – all futures, imagined or not yet imagined
• Possible - “might” happen (future knowledge)
• Plausible – “could” happen (current knowledge)
• Probable - “likely to” happen (current trends)
• Preferable - “want to” happen (value judgements)
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TYPES OF FUTURES
Time
Today
Possible
Plausible
Probable
Preferable
Scenario
“Wildcard”
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Inputs
Strategy
Outputs
Analysis
Interpretation
“what might we need to do?”
“what will we do?” “how will we do it?”
“what’s really happening?”
“what seems to be happening?”
things happening
F or e s
i gh t
“what might happen?” Prospection
Copyright © 2000 Joseph Voros
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL
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FUTURES:WHY FUTURES?
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WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
What we don‟t know we don‟t know What we know
we don‟t know
What we know
Most of what we need to know to make good decisions today is
outside our comprehension: we don‟t even know it‟s there.
All our knowledge is about the past, but all our
decisions are about the future.
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• “Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hopefor future development”: Roman engineer Sextus Julius Frontinus, 1st Century
AD
• "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.“: Pierre Pachet,Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
• “Heavier than air flying machines are not possible”: Lord Kelvin,President of the Royal Society, 1895
• "There is no likehood man can ever tap the power of the atom." Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
• “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently highplateau”: Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929
• “Space flight is hokum”: Astronomer Royal, 1956
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
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• “We don‟t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out”: Decca Recording Co. rejecting The Beatles, 1962.
• “I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers”: ThomasWatson, Chairman of IBM, 1943
• "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home”: Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment, 1977
• “640K [of RAM] ought to be enough for anybody”: Bill Gates, 1981
• “The fact that conflicts with other countries [producing civiliancasualties] have been conducted away from the U.S. homelandcan be considered one of the more fortunate aspects of theAmerican experience”: Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) for the US Deptof Defence, 2001
BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
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BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
• “We live in a time of clashing conflict and massive institutional failures,a time of endings and of beginnings. A time that feels as if something
profound is shifting and dying while something else … wants to be born… The crisis of our time is about the dying of an old social structure, anold way of institutionalizing and enacting collective social forms.”
C Otto Scharmer, 2005
www.ottoscharmer.com
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BECAUSE THINGS CHANGE!
• At a time when human societies are altering the fundamental conditionsof life on planet earth, the dominant outlook remains a focus on short term thinking .
• Short term thinking is a major systemic defect within the industrialworldview.
• The world we are creating leads to Dystopian futures.
Richard Slaughter, 2003www.foresightinternational.com.au
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WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
• Because:
• it is largely unknown, unpredictable, unpredictable and non-determined, so we need to:
• try and understand that uncertainty to make sense of what is going on today,and
• find ways of understanding possible futures that are only just emerging,
• it helps to assess the potential future risk of action we areconsidering today
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WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
• And because:
• we create the future through our actions and decisions today,individually and collectively, so we need to pay attention to it
• we are responsible for future generations as well as ourselves
• and … you want to avoid saying something that sounds really smartat the time but which ends up as a quote in a presentation like this
20 years later
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WORLDVIEWS…
• Humans do not make rational, logical decisions based on informationinput, instead they pattern match with either their own experience, or collective experience expressed as stories. It isn‟t even a best fit
pattern match, but a first fit pattern match … The human brain is alsosubject to habituation, things that we do frequently create habitualpatterns which both enable rapid decision making, but also entrainbehaviour in such a manner that we literally do not see things that fail tomatch the patterns of our expectations.
Dave Snowden 2003: 1
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WORLDVIEWS…
• The majority is not always right, the conventional wisdom is not alwayswise, and the accepted doctrine could well be flawed. The morefashionable an idea, the more it is likely to be exempt from critical
evaluation. Breakthrough thinking sometimes calls for contradicting themost widely held assumptions and beliefs.
Karl Albrecht
Corporate Radar, Tracking the Forces That Are Shaping Your Business, 1999.
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WORLDVIEWS (THE INNERPERSPECTIVE)
• Being aware of our particular worldviews, our expectations, and how wesee the world.
• Understanding what our blind spots are – what is it that we don‟t seebecause of who we are.
• Being open to accepting different worldviews – not better or worse, justdifferent. And, it‟s okay (or it should be) to say “No, I don‟t see the
world in the way that you do.”
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REFLECTION: WORLDVIEWS (THEINNER PERSPECTIVE)
• Can you identify assumptions underpinning your worldview?
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FUTURES:
INTEGRAL FUTURES
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INTEGRAL FUTURES
• Integral Futures• Ken Wilber‟s four quadrants (www.kenwilber.com)
• SDI using the four quadrants
• Understanding your role in the process
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INTEGRAL FUTURES
• A holistic view of all phenomenon, not just the empiricallyobservable or quantitative.
• Integrating Eastern and Western traditions, philosophies,sciences and approaches.
• Recognises that there are many ways of knowing, and that noone way is dominant.
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WILBER’S FOUR QUADRANTS
Interior Exterior
Collective
Individual
Intentional “I”
Upper Left
Behavioural “It”
Upper Right
Cultural “We”
Lower Left
Social “Its”
Lower Right
THE SCARY VERSION OF WILBER
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THE SCARY VERSION OF WILBER
FOUR QUADRANTS: INDIVIDUAL
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FOUR QUADRANTS: INDIVIDUAL
Interior Exterior
Collective
Individual
Individual values, beliefs
attitudes and meaning
Cultural context of theindividual, creates
shared context
Observed
Behaviour
The collectiveexternal world
Intentional “I” Behavioural “It”
Cultural “We” Social “Its”
FOUR QUADRANTS ORGANISATION
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FOUR QUADRANTS: ORGANISATION
Interior Exterior
Collective
Individual
Staff
Organisational
Culture
Organisational
Behaviour
External
Positioning andRelationships
FOUR QUADRANTS: SDI
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FOUR QUADRANTS: SDI
Interior Exterior
Collective
Individual
Views of Staff:
Focus Groups,
Interviews
Understanding the Internal
Environment:
Casual Layered Analysis,
Slaughter‟s Transformative
Cycle, Anthropological
approaches
Inclusive Planning and
Decision Making Processes:
Strategic Planning Workshops,
Strategic Plans
Understanding the External
Environment: Scanning, Delphi,
SWOT, Scenario Planning etc.
O Q S S
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Interior Exterior
Collective
Individual
Ken Wilber‟s Four Quadrant Model http://www.kenwilber.com
Business as Usual
Strategy and „Fit”
Organisational Culture
Staff
FOUR QUADRANTS: SDI
We get rewarded for our
performance here, sowe spend most time
here
We don‟t get rewarded
for how well we think or
understand culture, so
we don‟t spend muchtime here
Visible and
measurable
Invisible & not
measurable
UNDERSTANDING YOUR ROLE
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UNDERSTANDING YOUR ROLE
Interior Exterior
Collective
Individual
Individual values,
beliefs attitudes –
your perspective
and worldview, your
meaning
Cultural
Observed
Behaviour
External
WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
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WHY THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE?
What we don‟t know we don‟t know What we know
we don‟t know
What we know
Most of what we need to know to make good decisions today is
outside our comprehension: we don‟t even know it‟s there.
All our knowledge is about the past, but all our
decisions are about the future.
Interior Exterior
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Individual
Collective
What we don‟t know
we don‟t know
What we know we
don‟t know
What we
know
What we don‟t know
we don‟t know
What we know we
don‟t know
What we
know
What we don‟t know
we don‟t know
What
we know we
don‟t know
What we
know
What we don‟t know
we don‟t know
What
we know we
don‟t know
What we
know
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INTEGRAL FUTURES
• The future is not just „out there‟, but „in here‟ as well.
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REFLECTION: INTEGRAL FUTURES
• How is information about staff views of the future collected atyour institution?
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FUTURES IN STRATEGY
DEVELOPMENT & IMPLEMENTATION
THE HOME OF FUTURES IN SDI
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THE HOME OF FUTURES IN SDI
Strategic ThinkingGenerating Options
What might happen?
Strategic Decision Making
Making choices
What will we do?
Strategic Planning
Taking Action
How will we do it?
Options
Decisions
Action
FuturesApproaches and
Methods
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL
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Inputs
Strategy
Outputs
Analysis
Interpretation
“what might we need to do?”
“what will we do?” “how will we do it?”
“what’s really happening?”
“what seems to be happening?”
things happening
F or e s
i gh t
“what might happen?” Prospection
Copyright © 2000 Joseph Voros
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL
FUTURES AND SDI
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What will we do?
What might we need to do?
What’s happening?
What’s really happening? What might happen?
What seems to be happening?Strategic Thinking
Generating OptionsWhat might happen?
Options
Strategic Decision Making
Making choices
What will we do? Decisions
F or e
s i gh t
Strategic Planning
Taking Action
How will we do it? Action How will we do it?
FUTURES AND SDI
FUTURES AND SDI
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Analysis
What seems to be happening?
FUTURES AND SDI
Input
What’s happening?
Interpretation
What’s really happening?
Prospection
What might happen?
Gathering
Categorising
Contextualising
Sense Making
Innovation
Right hand quadrants
Left hand quadrants
FUTURES AND SDI INPUT
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FUTURES AND SDI: INPUT
Focus on past, present and future. Collect qualitative and quantitative
information.• Delphi
Genius based – sampling of expert opinions, reducing divergence over a series of surveys(Japan‟s futures program does this well)
• Environmental Scanning• Voros - 4Q/11L scanning – taking into account both the worldview of the scanner and the
worldviews of the users of the information. Integrating spiral dynamics into the equation. Aims to merge upper left and lower right quadrant activity.
• Choo (1998) – different levels: competitor intelligence, competitive intelligence, businessintelligence, environmental scanning, social scanning (at level of country)
InputInformation
Gathering
FUTURES AND SDI ANALYSIS
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FUTURES AND SDI: ANALYSIS
Analysis
What seems to be happening?Categorising
Forecasting – extrapolates trends out, useful for short-term work.
Cross Impact Analysis – how trends interact and impact on each other.
Trend Analysis – data over time, underpinned by assumptions about how data is behaving
– those assumptions condition what we see in the data.
Emerging Issues Analysis – looks earlier in the trend cycle to identify issues before they
emerge in the mainstream. Moving beyond quantitative data focus.
Current approaches at this level are largely quantitative in nature.
FUTURES AND SDI ANALYSIS
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FUTURES AND SDI: ANALYSIS
Emerging Issues
Trends
Mainstream
Time
Number of
cases;degree of
public
awareness
Scientists, artists,
radicals, mystics
Newspapers,
magazines, websites,
journals
GovernmentInstitutions
Few cases, local focus
Global,
multiple
dispersedcases, trends
and
megatrends
Adapted from the work of Graham Molitor, Wendy Schultz and
Everett Rogers
InnovatorsEarly adopters
Late Adopters
Late Majority
Laggards
Today
Look on the fringe
(weird and whacky!)
Worldview issues will affect uptake at this
stage –
“I don’t believe
that!”
Future
FUTURES AND SDI INTERPRETATION
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FUTURES AND SDI: INTERPRETATION
Interpretation
What’s really happening?
Contextualising
Sense Making
Interpreting the analysis for the organisation‟s context. Making sense of the data for the organisation.
Most strategy work stops at this step. Decisions are made once interpretation has
occurred.
FUTURES AND SDI: INTERPRETATION
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FUTURES AND SDI: INTERPRETATION
Events
Patterns, Trends
System Structure
News Items
Recurring Themes
Underlying “Drivers”
“Core” Human Intelligences
Mental Models
Thinking Systems
Mindsets, Worldviews,Metaphors, Myths
Copyright © 2001 Joseph Voros
Levels of Structure
FUTURES AND SDI INTERPRETATION
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FUTURES AND SDI: INTERPRETATION
• What‟s really happening?????
• Aim to challenge categories of analysis in the previous step – what
does it mean?
• There are layers of reality, and layers of depth – how deeply do wewant to go in interpretation? What is appropriate for my organisation?
FUTURES AND SDI INTERPRETATION
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FUTURES AND SDI: INTERPRETATION
• Macrohistory – cycles of large scale change over time; how socialsystems change; grand unifying principles are sought.
• Causal Layered Analysis (Sohail Inayatullah):• Litany• Social causes• Worldview• Myth/metaphor
• How do you challenge the prevailing worldview and assumptionsunderpinning it? What will your organisation be comfortable with?
Particularly good for digging deep
to find those valued assumptions
FUTURES AND SDI: PROSPECTION
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FUTURES AND SDI: PROSPECTION
Prospection
What might happen?Innovation
Focus on the future. Deriving a broader range of strategy options
from the analysis: what options are available to us in the long-term? What might be the impact of those options in the long-
term? What will influence those options? What are potential
obstacles?
Scenarios, visioning, futures workshops.
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Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
FUTURES AND SDI: PROSPECTION
Inductive
Scenario 1 Scenario 2
Scenario 3 Scenario 4
Deductive
Official
Future
Alternative scenario
Incremental
Vision
Normative
Adapted from Ged Davis, Scenarios as aTool for the 21st Century, Shell International, 2002
GENERIC FORESIGHT MODEL @ VU
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Inputs
Strategy
Outputs
Analysis
Interpretation
BROADER STRATEGIC OPTIONS
DECISIONSIMPLEMENTATION
CAUSAL LAYERED ANALYSIS
TREND/EMERGINGISSUES ANALYSIS
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
F or e s
i gh t
SCENARIO PLANNING Prospection
Copyright © 2000 Joseph Voros
REFLECTION: FUTURES AND SDI
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REFLECTION: FUTURES AND SDI
• What methods would you use to establish strategy processes
underpinned by futures input at your institution?
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FUTURES:
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• Foresight: an often unconscious individual capacity to think aboutthe future.
• Strategic Foresight: an organisational foresight capacity.
• Foresight is the capacity to think systematically about the
future to inform today's decision making. It is a capacity thatwe need to develop as individuals, as organisations, and as asociety.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• Planning happens only after a decision has been made – you plan howyou will implement the decision and keep track of achieving your goal.
• A decision is made only after some strategic thinking has taken place.
• How do you think strategically? How does an organisation „think‟ strategically?
• Can only the executive of an organisation think strategically?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• Strategic thinking is about systematically and routinely:
• using a wide range of information and data from the past and the present,including that held by individuals,
• using that information and data to consider a range of alternative and plausible scenarios about what might happen in the future,
• thinking about how the organisation might respond in terms of risks and
opportunities if those scenarios came true – Van der Heijden‟s „strategicconversations‟, and
• making decisions based on the enhanced understanding that results.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• Without explorations of what the future might hold, strategic planning aswe know it today creates a default scenario:
• A future that validates the plan, and this view of the future dominates … decision
making (Hodgson, 2004).
• This is sometimes called the „official‟ future - the one that‟s written in our vision and mission statements.
• Not thinking about the future risks depending on a business-as-usual approach, or the „official‟ future (also known as “let‟s bet the farm cos Iknow best” sometimes espoused by some Vice-Chancellors).
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• Strategic thinking involves exploring:
• Lower Left and Lower Right Quadrant factors in the internal and externalenvironment that are critical uncertainties for the organisation, and recognisestheir interconnections and interdependencies, and
• Upper Left Quadrant hopes, dreams and images of the future held by individualsin the organisation.
• Successful strategy development deals with both - because, ultimately,people implement or undermine strategy.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• There will be many, many competing images of the future. Only whenthose images are articulated can the possibility of a shared view of the
future – and a shared strategy - begin to emerge.
• You need overt organisational processes to be able to articulate imagesof the future.
• Because images reside in the Upper Left Quadrant, you needprocesses that engage people as individuals.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• All individuals have the capacity for foresight – we use that
capacity every day.
• The aim is to move that individual capacity to a shared,organisational capacity.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
Individual foresight is:
unconscious
implicit
solitary
Strategic Foresight is:
conscious
explicit
collective
Individuals recognise and build their
foresight capacity
Individuals begin to talk about and use
futures approaches in their work
Individual capacities generate organisational capacity (through structures & processes)
Adapted from the work of Joseph Voros and
Richard Slaughter
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• Generates a challenge: strategic foresight takes time todevelop because:
• we are dealing with how people think,
• we are asking people to question their thinking and to surface theassumptions upon which their thinking is based – this is often scaryand uncomfortable.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• And, in today‟s „business‟ environment, it is easy to dismiss the need tothink about the future.
• “I am too busy dealing with the here and now to think about the future” (University
Council member).
• “I think about the future every day, and it‟s an insult that you are here to teach mehow to think” (Deputy Vice-Chancellor).
• “I don‟t get paid to think about the future, I get paid to produce results” (CorporateDirector).
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• In our jobs, we are rewarded not for thinking about the future, but for results in the present.
• We are rewarded for certainty in the present, not uncertainty about thefuture.
• We can speak confidently about the past and the present (or seem likewe are), but it is difficult to speak confidently about the future.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
• But, strategy is about the future.
• Thinking about the future is thinking about uncertainty.
• How do we incorporate thinking about uncertainty, and hence, thinkingabout the future, into our decision making processes?
• How do we demonstrate the value of taking time out in the present toconsider long term issues to inform decision making today?
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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Past Present Future
20071927 2027
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
Strategy Decisions
We start in the present, wanting to make
strategy for the future.
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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Past Present Future
2007
With the power of strategic hindsight, we add in the
past, and focus on trends over time, maybe taking
those trends a few years into the future.
1927 2027
Strategic Hindsight
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
Strategy Decisions
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
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Past Present Future
20071927 2027
Strategic Hindsight Strategic Foresight
BUILDING A STRATEGIC FORESIGHTCAPACITY
Strategy Decisions
To enhance your future strategy and make wiser decisions,
you need to use the power of strategic foresight to explore the
future – just as you explore the past and the present.
REFLECTION: BUILDING A
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REFLECTION: BUILDING ASTRATEGIC FORESIGHT CAPACITY
• How will you convince whoever needs to be convinced of thevalue of strategic thinking using a futures approach?
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BUT, THIS WOULDN’T WORK IN MYINSTITUTION … OR WOULD IT?
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
• Language• Maintaining Support at the Top
• Organisational Positioning
• Organisational Context and Politics
• Thinking is Work Too
• People
• Implementation
• Worldviews and Assumptions – the „glazed eye‟ syndrome • Knowledge
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
• Language
• Get used to crystal ball jokes
• Choose terms that will be understood
• Develop clear and unequivocal messages about what you aredoing, and why you are doing it
• Stay strong!
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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SSO S O C C
• Maintaining Support at the Top
• Obvious, but critical
• Need to ensure futures work is not dependent on an individual
• Need a CEO who will support you and follow through
• Not only CEO, but executive group• in my experience, it is this group that has the real influence on the degree to
which futures work is accepted
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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• Organisational Positioning
• Setting up an organisational futures program is different to using
futures approaches in your work.
• At organisational level, needs clear mandate and support. TheViable Systems Model (VSM) is useful here.
• In your work, will depend on your job and your boss!
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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• Organisational Context and Politics
• This is the one I misread badly.
• Who needs to be involved?• Who can derail your work?
• Futures work competes with the power of people‟s egos andpersonal positionings, animosities and ambitions. You need to
understand these.
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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• Thinking is Work Too
• Convincing people to take time out to participate in futures work willbe difficult.
• How many of you have commented along the lines of … “if only Ihad time to think?”
• And, how many think planning workshops and retreats are usually awaste of time?
• We need to schedule in time to think.
• We need to start viewing thinking as work too.
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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• People
• People doing futures work need established credibility and goodwill,because this work will strain working relationships:
• „you were well respected when you worked in the teaching divisions, but onceyou started this foresight work, things went downhill‟ (said a DVC to me)
• While you need to maintain support at the top, you will probably findthat people at the „grass roots‟ are more open to futures.
• Feedback to my work suggests they like and see value in the prospectivestage in particular (scenarios and creating futures)
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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• Implementation
• Conceptual framework• Strong methodology• Clear project plan – purpose and structure, roles and responsibilities
• Communication strategy – explain why there is value• Differentiate between content and process
• If we are to find out what staff think about the future, we need to letthem tell us, not present them with pre-packaged views of where theuniversity should be going.
• Long term – this will take time.
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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• Worldviews
• Watch out for the „glazed eye syndrome‟ (you are hitting a strongworldview when this happens).
• Challenging deeply held assumptions is critical but very, verydifficult.
• Watch out for your own worldview – develop a strong, reflectiveunderstanding of how you see the world – what you look for, andwhat you miss altogether.
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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• Knowledge
• Need to have a firm grounding in the futures field and concepts.
• Reading a book is not enough (and deluded!)
• If you are serious about this work, get a qualification in it, or use afutures consultant who specialises in knowledge transfer as part of
the deal.
LESSONS FROM PRACTICE
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• Doing futures work is both challenging and very hard work,but it will also be some of the most rewarding and exciting
work you have ever done.
• It will change the way you think, and it will change the wayyou see the world.
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CLOSE
STRATEGIC PLANNING REVISITED:
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SOME KEY MESSAGES
• Terminology: SDI
• Three steps (thinking, deciding, doing)
• Responsibility for future generations
• Past, present and future• Integral approach – consider both inner and outer worlds/perspectives
• Understand your worldview and accept the worldviews of others
• Generic foresight model (input, analysis, interpretation, prospection)
• Strategic thinking and strategic foresight
• Any others?
REFLECTION: BACK TO WORK
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• Consider … what messages will you take back to your institution about this session?
• Nothing? That‟s okay
• How will you describe this session to colleagues who did notattend?
BACK TO WORK
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• You are but one person in your institution.
• You are very busy. You often feel overwhelmed (“the heat of an ever
increasing workload and pressure to do even more”, Scharmer 2005).
• Where can you make a difference? Because you can.
• But you will be at the cutting edge in strategy development…andsometimes that hurts!
BACK TO WORK
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Andy Hines, An Audit for Organizational Futurists: 10 Questions Every
Organizational Futurist Should be Able to Answer, 2003
PITCH
MESSAGE
HERE
Have good organisational
diagnostics: can smell the
cheese, but will jump ship.
Get it, and can use the
system – very rare.
Don‟t bother – they are waiting
for you to fail! They will follow you
blindly – just like
lemmings!
LAST WORD … ALMOST
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• “…using futures thinking and tools improves our decision-making and our lives, on a personal, organizational,community/social and global level”, but changing an entire
organisation “requires an enlightened CEO and upper management that sees the need for this thinking. Thisunfortunately remains the small minority of situations.”
(Hines, 2002)
LAST WORD … REALLY
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“The near term future can be clearly understood by developing the rightcapacities, asking the right questions and nurturing the right people.The careful use of such resources provides organisational access to anevolving structural overview of the next couple of decades …Organisations that participate effectively in this process will find a range
of valuable outcomes: they will seldom be overtaken by change, theywill not succumb to crisis management, they will find it easy to avoidproblems and seize opportunities, they will develop long term vision anda kind of forward looking prescience … strategic foresight can supply acoherent forward view that will be a cornerstone of organisationalsuccess in the 21st century.”
(Slaughter, 2004)
Q ti ?More information:
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Questions?More information:
http://www.thinkingfutures.net
Tel: 03 90169506Skype: mkconway1