Stephen M. Millett, Ph.D.Founder and Managing Member

Futuring Associates LLCDecember 2007

Copyright 2007 Futuring Associates LLC (All rights reserved)

A. If “the future” cannot be predicted, it can be anticipated with varying degrees of uncertainty

B. Futuring and visioning are different perspectives, and they must be done together

C. Trends should be identified, tracked, and integrated into alternative futures with potential disruptive events and flexible responses

All predictions and forecasts are conditional (if…), and certainty is based upon known variables, constant relationships among the variables, system stability, timeframe, and lack of unexpected events.

Nobody has data from the future – all forecasts are conjectures, even hypotheses, subject to validation or revision by further information…and

Anticipating the future is a continuous process: there are no immutable forecasts or immutable futures, just more and better information.

“Forecasts” should be broadly defined to include qualitative descriptions, not just specific events and numbers.

The future will be a combination of continuity and change – but the mix can vary greatly.

Thinking about the future leads to anticipating and preparing for future conditions – there are benefits beyond the accuracy of forecasts (team-building, strategy-making, empowerment, and adaptability)

Futuring requires familiarity with many trends, solid logic, modeling and simulations, planning, preparation, and flexibility (a rationalist, if not positivist, approach requiring both qualitative and quantitative methods)

The past: an historian, who already knows what happened, can reconstruct (to varying degrees of completeness depending upon surviving evidence) how something occurred – the reconstructed linear path looks almost deterministic (only signal, no noise)

The present: we think we know what is going on, but we never have complete information; we know that the present was produced by the past and will affect the future, but with many possibilities (signal buried in lots of noise)

The future: a combination of long-term trends, short-term actions, and unforeseen and disruptive events (black and white swans)

“Futuring is a systematic process of thinking about the future in order to frame reasonable expectations, to identify emerging opportunities and threats to the company of organization, and to anticipate actions that will promote desired outcomes….One thinks through the problem from the macroscopic, external environment to the microscopic factors of a company or organization…”

“Visioning is the opposite of futuring: it is a logical process that progresses from the micro- to the macro-levels.”

Source: Stephen M. Millett, “Futuring and visioning: complementary approaches to strategic decision making,” Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2006, pp. 43-50 (quotes on pp. 43, 45).

Exterior-Interior approach of Futuring

Interior-Exterior Approach of Visioning

Plans and Actions

Global and National Trends

Consumer/Market Trends

Specific Opportunities

Goals, Strategies, and Investments

Competencies and Technologies

Corporate Culture and Assets

VISIONING

FUTURING

External trends move faster than internal conditions

The primary barriers to internal changes (deviations or innovations) are corporate culture and fixed assets (sunk capital).

There will always be a misalignment of external environments and internal conditions – the question is how long and how wide the misalignment becomes.

Use expert judgment to identify the most important trends to monitor – but use scanning as peripheral vision (75%/25%)

Also use expert judgment to try to identify possible disruptive events

Perform consistent trend tracking and analysis as a type of pattern recognition

Generate scenarios for alternative futures, derive robust strategies, anticipate contingencies, and simulate changes

What do you do about multiple trends? Do they positively or negatively impact each other? You need to integrate trends into net assessments.

Scenarios provide a way to integrate trends into alternative descriptions of the future

Scenarios also allow you to introduce disruptive events to see how they might change the scenarios

You should generate “futuring” scenarios first, then identify what is the most preferred scenario and what needs to occur – this provides a framework for “visioning” leading to plans and actions.

Type I: the background (or pattern) is well known – we are looking for and changes and new elements

Type II: the background means little or nothing – we are looking for a specific signal

Type III: we do not know the background or the signal – we are gathering and plotting data looking for a pattern

The Recentness Effect: what appears important today is assumed to be important tomorrow – being overly influence by today’s news (linear projections)

Bias: being either too optimistic or too pessimistic or assuming that what one wants is what will happen (the sins of wishful thinking, self-interest, or advocacy)

Type 2 Errors, or Sins of Omission: not including factors that emerge as very important in the future

Disruptive Events, or “Black Swan”: high consequence, low probability events that are difficult if not impossible to predict

Ignorance about trends and true conditions today – lack of adequate and correct information

Miscalculation: identifying the right variables, but incorrectly defining or misestimating values/ranges

Energy: sources, prices, and efficiencies (especially oil, diesel, coal, and alternative sources for electricity)

Carbon dioxide management and global climate change

Systems management innovations in information and communication technologies (ICT)

Expectations for real-time transactions and transparency

Consumer value and spending Sustained economic growth Increasing global trade and competition Availability of human talent New partnerships between private and

public sectors, especially for high budget infrastructure

Acts of terrorism with long-term consequences

A stupendous accident with great collateral damage (both physical and psychological)

Very sudden, very high spike in global oil prices

Political and economic upheaval in China Severe limitations on carbon emissions A pandemic that takes people out of the

system

Do occasional futuring studies to provide guidance for long-term strategies, plans, and investments [Principle A]

Develop a point of view about the future and share it with your customers (thought leadership) [Principles A and B]

Combine futuring with visioning (don’t do just one or the other) – futuring and visioning workshops should occur at least once a year and lead to operational plans [Principles B and C]

Set up a monitoring and scanning system with continual distribution of information [Principle C]

Revise forecasts and make changes as new information and conditions warrant [Principles A and C]

Develop robust strategies based on both futuring and visioning and be prepared to be adaptable [Principal C]

Stephen M. Millett, Ph.D.Founder and Managing Member,Futuring Associates LLC3673 Tillbury Ave.Columbus, Ohio 43220 USA(614) 457-6632smillett@futuringassociates.com

Founder and Managing Member, Futuring Associates LLC, 2007-

Researcher, manager, and futurist at Battelle, Columbus, Ohio, 1979-2006

Member at Large, State Board of Education, Ohio, 2003-

Founding member of the Association of Professional Futurists and professional member of the World Futures Society

Author or co-author of four books and 28 journal articles; inventor listed on one patent

Officer, US Air Force, 1971-1979 Ph.D., history, The Ohio State University, 1972