Scenario Planning in Action: What, Why, Success Factors, and Process

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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.


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Availability in Europe for keynotes/ workshops/ consulting late April to late May

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I will spending a month in Europe from late April to late May, with a busy but not yet full schedule, so I’m open to offers on possible work in that period.

My trip kicks off with a keynote on The Future of Crowds at TheNextWeb Conference April 25-27 – more on that soon. I was originally planning to do some events in London and Paris shortly before then, but some potential engagements in Shanghai and Singapore mean I will probably arrive in Europe not long before TheNextWeb.

Building on my visit, the consulting firm Across Technology told me they were “impressed by my engaging style as a keynote speaker and talent as a workshop facilitator”, and invited me do a European tour. That has already resulted in them confirming a series of keynote engagements in early to mid-May in locations including Luxembourg, Italy, and Moscow.
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Is Manifesto the right word for our times?

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It strikes me that in these these confused and confusing times we should lay down clear thoughts about what we believe in. I am mustering my thoughts across a number domains to express what I think is important.

However one of the questions is what to call these statements. On the face of it ‘Manifesto’ is an admirable description.

From the political domain the Communist Manifesto (1848) and Anarchist Manifesto (1850) flowed through into artistic domain, with notably the Futurist Manifesto (1909) and Surrealist Manifesto (1924), and on into the social domain, with the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto (1968) among the many marking the cultural revolution of the 1960s. Since then the technological domain has been rife with statements from the GNU Manifesto (1985) and Hackers Manifesto (1986) through to the bestselling Cluetrain Manifesto (1999).


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New ideas: Building the organizations of tomorrow

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I recently spoke at an event organised by Building the Organisation of Tomorrow, a group created by alumni of University of Technology Sydney’s Master of Business in IT Management program.

The format was very stimulating, with three 15 minute presentations, each followed by 15 minutes Q&A and then a ‘disruptive event’, including some awesome satirical musical performances and a planted heckler in the audience. Below are notes from the three speakers.
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Crowdsourcing infographic: Choosing between fixed fees and hourly rates

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[This post first appeared on the Getting Results From Crowds book website]

One of the most important issues in using service marketplaces is choosing between fixed fees and hourly rates.


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Launch of new keynote speaker website

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The site rossdawson.com has long been where I point potential clients for my keynote speaking and other personal work. As usual it has taken longer than planned, but we now have just launched an entirely redesigned website.


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New keynote speaker video

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For a keynote speaker having a good showcase video is critical. Potential clients want to get an idea of your style and presence before booking you, and usually a video is the only way to provide that.

I have just finished producing a new keynote speaker video. This was long overdue as the last one wasn’t nearly as good as it should be. The new one is a big improvement, though I think there is more scope for improvement yet. This video is also on the front page of my new rossdawson.com website and on the video page.

I will soon write more about the process of creating a keynote speaker video. In the meantime, I would love your feedback on the video, including any suggestions for improvement.

Insights and perspectives on Facebook’s IPO

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Last week I did an interview on radio 2SER on Facebook’s IPO and its future. You can listen to a podcast of the interview below.

A few key points I covered:
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The future of radio will be a personal mosaic of global and local audio

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On Tuesday I was interviewed as part of a 30 minute panel discussion on ABC Queensland on the future of radio. The podcast of the program is here.

It was a wide ranging discussion, and we covered a lot of territory. At the conclusion of the program, when we were each asked to give our vision for the future of radio, I described what I see radio becoming.

As I pointed out, just as what we have thought of as TV is shifting to multi-channel video, radio is shifting to multi-channel audio, distributed over IP to a multitude of devices, notably mobile phones. However audio will remain an important media channel forever, as there are many reasons we sometimes want just audio without visual accompaniment.
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The many and varied risk factors in Facebook’s IPO

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My favorite part of reading S-1 IPO filings is always the risk factors. They are seemingly endless, as the company tries to cover its ass for all the things that might conceivably go wrong. But they are often very insightful in pointing to the real issues facing the company.

To save you reading it all, here is a highly selective summary of just a few of the interesting risk factors Facebook points to in its IPO filing:

If we fail to retain existing users or add new users, or if our users decrease their level of engagement with Facebook, our revenue, financial results, and business may be significantly harmed.
…
Any number of factors could potentially negatively affect user retention, growth, and engagement, including if:

* we are unable to successfully balance our efforts to provide a compelling user experience with the decisions we make with respect to the frequency, prominence, and size of ads and other commercial content that we display;
* there are changes in user sentiment about the quality or usefulness of our products or concerns related to privacy and sharing, safety, security, or other factors;
* we are unable to manage and prioritize information to ensure users are presented with content that is interesting, useful, and relevant to them;
* we adopt policies or procedures related to areas such as sharing or user data that are perceived negatively by our users or the general public;
etc.
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