Scenario planning as a management discipline has a long and rich pedigree. It is just one of a wide variety of tools and processes that have been developed to help executives and organizations build strategies and succeed in an uncertain world. However almost 15 years experience in applying a wide variety of strategic futures tools have lead me to believe that scenario planning is the single most powerful approach available.
This certainly doesn’t mean that scenario planning is always the best approach to help organizations explore the future. However I see it as the single broadest and most powerful tool to facilitate rigorous, structured decision-making about the long-term future in high levels of uncertainty.
As I have written, the greater the uncertainty, the greater the value of scenario planning, and in almost every industry today uncertainty is increasing. The many industries to which we have applied scenario planning include financial services, media, infrastructure, and many others.
In fact, engendering scenario thinking among executives is far more important than scenario planning, however scenario planning is often the best route to that outcome.
Scenario planning is a rich and varied domain, and should be implemented uniquely depending on the context and the objectives. One of the challenges is that many people talk about ‘scenario planning’, often meaning very different things, and not infrequently degrading the term by applying it to unsophisticated approaches to dealing with uncertain futures.
To help a large consumer-goods organization we worked with last year on a scenario planning project to understand the issues, I pulled together an overview of what scenario planning is and a typical process. We have summarized that in the following two page document.
Click on the image for full-size pdf
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Value based pricing is at the heart of the future of professional services
By Ross DawsonIn my first book Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships: The Future of Professional Services the final chapter was titled Value-Based Pricing: Implementing New Revenue Models. Pricing by value rather than time is clearly a central aspect to building true knowledge-based relationships, since knowledge should be measured by the value of its application rather than time spent by professionals.
The chapter in my book provides a fair overview of the key possibilities and factors in value-based pricing. However I am not a deep expert in the field. When discussing the issue with clients, I usually refer to Ron Baker, who among other claims to fame has written books including Pricing on Purpose, Professionals Guide to Value Pricing, and one I’ve long had on my bookself, The Firm of the Future.
Ron is currently in Australia running a series of workshops on The Firm of the Future, and he kindly invited me to join his masterclass session in Sydney this morning.
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Infographic: Timeline of the acceleration of crowdsourcing
By Ross DawsonIn Chapter 2 of Getting Results From Crowds on The Rise of Crowdsourcing we included a Crowdsourcing Timeline, showing a selection of some of the important events in the world of crowds over the last couple of hundred years.
Tapping crowds has a long and illustrious past, with of course an acceleration over the last 15 years as humanity has becoming connected, vastly broadening the scope of crowd participation.
The image below is taken straight from a two-page spread in the book. Click on the image for the full-size version.
Le futur de Facebook et le rôle de la France
By Ross DawsonVoici ma première vidéo en francais, qui est à propos du futur de Facebook.
Quelques miettes du video :
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Explorer le futur en France et en français
By Ross DawsonCeci est le premier billet de blog que j’écris en français. Je suis Australien, né à Canberra, mais mon père travaillais pour l’ONU et j’ai passé presque tout ma jeunesse à Genève. Je vivais ainsi à quelques kilomètres de la France et j’y allais tous les samedis pour skier. Cela fait bien longtemps que je n’ai pas vécu dans un pays francophone, mais heureusement je n’ai pas trop oublié mon français.
Je vais passer de la fin avril à la fin mai en Europe, commençant avec un keynote à The Next Web à Amstersdam sur The Future of Crowds et enchaînant par la suite avec diverses conférences et ateliers, entre autres, à Londres, Luxembourg, Cologne, Moscou et Milan.
Durant cette visite, mais aussi dans les années à venir, j’ai l’intention d’augmenter mon visibilité et de travailler beaucoup plus en France. La France et le français ont joué un rôle très important dans mon passé et je voudrais qu’il en soit de même pour mon avenir.
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Insights and real-life case studies in effective crowdfunding for change
By Ross DawsonThis evening I spoke at the Crowdfunding for Change event run by Avis Mulhall‘s Think Act Change. The event kicked off with a presentations by Adam Chapnick, head of business development at seminal creative crowdfunding platform IndieGogo, and award-winning film director Gillian Leahy, followed by a panel consisting of myself together with Alan Crabbe, co-founder of leading Australian crowdfunding site Pozible, and Ryan Wardell, founder of ProjectPowerUp.
Below are live notes from the event, capturing what I could of the presentations and conversation. I wasn’t able to take notes when I was speaking, so will write more about my thoughts on effective crowdfunding and where it is heading another time.
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Grow your business faster! Crowdsourcing and Crowd Business Models workshops in Sydney
By Ross DawsonFollowing the launch and fantastic response to Getting Results From Crowds we will be running a series of workshops around the world on creating value using crowds and crowdsourcing.
The first ones will be in Sydney on April 16, followed by a number to be announced shortly in Europe and the US (see our call for crowdsourcing workshop partners).
See the event page for full details on the workshops.
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Ten years from now: What we will do, have, and not have
By Ross DawsonThis morning I appeared on Channel 7’s The Morning Show talking about the world 10 years from now.
A few of the things I mentioned in the interview include:
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In the future libraries may die, but they will be reborn
By Ross DawsonThe future of libraries is a rich and fascinating topic. It’s over 10 years now since I first gave a keynote on the topic, to an an audience of over 1,200 members of the Australian Libraries and Information Association conference. In 2007 I gained notoriety on the topic when Richard Watson and I put libraries at 2019 in our Extinction Timeline, and have been drawn into strategy sessions with a number of major libraries since then.
Last week The Times (of Ottawa, Illinois) published a piece titled ‘They’ll be reborn’ What does the future hold for libraries?, sparked by discussion of the need for big new library projects in the region.
In the article I am quoted:
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Scenario Planning in Action: What, Why, Success Factors, and Process
By Ross DawsonScenario planning as a management discipline has a long and rich pedigree. It is just one of a wide variety of tools and processes that have been developed to help executives and organizations build strategies and succeed in an uncertain world. However almost 15 years experience in applying a wide variety of strategic futures tools have lead me to believe that scenario planning is the single most powerful approach available.
This certainly doesn’t mean that scenario planning is always the best approach to help organizations explore the future. However I see it as the single broadest and most powerful tool to facilitate rigorous, structured decision-making about the long-term future in high levels of uncertainty.
As I have written, the greater the uncertainty, the greater the value of scenario planning, and in almost every industry today uncertainty is increasing. The many industries to which we have applied scenario planning include financial services, media, infrastructure, and many others.
In fact, engendering scenario thinking among executives is far more important than scenario planning, however scenario planning is often the best route to that outcome.
Scenario planning is a rich and varied domain, and should be implemented uniquely depending on the context and the objectives. One of the challenges is that many people talk about ‘scenario planning’, often meaning very different things, and not infrequently degrading the term by applying it to unsophisticated approaches to dealing with uncertain futures.
To help a large consumer-goods organization we worked with last year on a scenario planning project to understand the issues, I pulled together an overview of what scenario planning is and a typical process. We have summarized that in the following two page document.
Click on the image for full-size pdf
Read more →
Using network perspectives to visualize changing culture and meaning
By Ross DawsonI’m a big fan of Tim Stock‘s work, which weaves together a deep network perspective with a rich view of how culture is changing informed by semiotic analysis. I earlier shared one of his presentations in a post on how the culture of luxury is changing.
The slides to his presentation at SXSW today on Culture Networks and the codes that drive them are available below. As usual, they provide a lesson in beautiful slide presentations to accompany the rich content.
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