p.9 I have found that using scenarios, in a number of environments, helps people to be more at ease with
uncertainties and to feel more in control of their destiny... in ICL, as the book describes, we used the technique to create
images of the future as a precursor to recommendations and action planning.
p.9 This is a book aimed at people who are faced with problems in the real world of today, looking at how
scenario planning may be able to help them find better solutions.
p.11 Models of the world are used to anticipate "real life".
p.11-12 It is clear from these examples that... the predictions for real life are only as good as the ability
of the model to contain enough of the rules and constraints of real life.
p.12 Two aspects of a successful model are suggested by these examples:
- The ability to anticipate real-world behaviour - which may be unexpected - through exploring
the constraints or changes in the external environment, or the relationships between forces.
- The creation of a mental model that allows the user to look for early confirming or disconfirming
evidence.
p.13 It could be said that scenario planning is a set of processes for improving the quality of the
educated guesses, and also for deciding what the implications are and when to gamble.
p.13-14 After the [second world] war, the RAND Corporation was set up to research new forms of weapons technology.
RAND's Herman Kahn pioneered the technique of "future-now" thinking, aiming through the
use of detailed analysis plus imagination to be able to produce a report as it might be written by people living in
the future.
The description "scenario" was given to these stories by the writer Leo Rosten, who suggested
the name based on [an obsolete] Hollywood terminology... Hermann Kahn adopted the term because he liked the emphasis it gave,
not so much on forecasting, but on creating a story or myth.
When he founded the Hudson Institute in the mid-1960s, Kahn specialised in stories about the future
aimed at helping people break past their mental blocks and consider "unthinkable" futures... Ted Newland of energy
giant Shell, which was one of the [Hudson Institute's] corporate sponsors, started to introduce thinking about the future
into his organisation.
p.14 27 top scientists from defence contractor TRW in 1966 were asked the question: "What will the world want
and need in the next twenty years?"...Of the 355 predictions released, nearly every prediction was wrong.
p.38 In summary, scenarios seem to be helping organisations of a range of sizes... to anticipate change
in a number of dimensions.
p.149 A forward-looking business should pressure-test its strategies and investments, to ensure that they
will survive
p.154 the scenarios have been the framework within which the relevant managers could "play" in the future
and experiment with options and the consequences of actions.
p.175 Scenarios are essentially a form of modeling of the future, in the way as a wind tunnel is used to test
new airframes or cars.
p.176 the basic assumption within scenario planning is that we are looking for the unexpected; i.e. what could
upset trends.
p.176 Cross-impact analysis, which is a technology for analysis of complex systems. It concentrates on the
ways in which forces on an organisation, external or internal, may interact to produce effects bigger than the sum of the
parts, or to magnify the effect of one force because of feedback loops.
