Prewies Gaja

Before the lecture “ICT Planning” I had never believed in scenario thinking. I had a personal and mathematical reason for that thought. Personal seen, the future is “carpe diem”. So why worry about the future if you can not enjoy today? Mathematically seen, the future is an outcome of a combination of events. These events can be interrelated in different ways based on their dependency. If an outcome consists of a lot of possible events, the chance that one particular event or a combination of particular events will lead to that outcome is very small. So what is the value of such a statement like this if you want to predict the future: the chance on this outcome based on event A and event B is 0.04 percent?

But assume that the chance of an occurrence of a combination of events is high. If you then take this event and calculate the chance that this event will happen then it can be said that this event will take place with a certain high amount of possibility. But what is the meaning and importance of such outcomes? The meaning is that now can be said that an event will take place with, for example, a likelihood of 95 percent. But what is the difference in importance between a likelihood of 95 percent and 94 percent in case you must make a decision based on a hard line placed on 95 percent? Will the 94 percent case not take place in the future? In general, what does this value say about the future? Completely nothing. A prediction of what the future could be would have more value than a prediction based on a chance that an outcome will be true in the future. And that is what scenario thinking is about: it does not promise you with percentages that this will be the future but we can tell you how the future will look like based on today’s events. This scenario thinking can be achieved on a methodology in which first research is done on a certain topic, driving forces are described, a system diagram is produced with the help of the answers of the research and driving forces and finally scenarios are made based on key uncertainties. During each of these phases I have learnt a lot.

Before the scenario thinking process is started, a project team has to be formed. For scenario thinking it is highly recommended to pick members who are prepared to think broad. During the first session I experienced the strength of a team. Our team had no problems to choose a topic and formulate easily the question we wanted to know about our topic. Because of different viewpoint concerning the topic, questions came up I would not think about it if I did the research myself. Unfortunately the team also had a shortcoming: it did not think broad enough. The problem was that we picked a topic we all knew a lot about. This type of information “pollutes” your mind because this is the way everyone is looking at a problem. This leads to a “fixed” future which everyone expects and which is not surprising. This contradicted our goal: we had to look for surprising, likely scenarios but we looked for scenarios everyone though it would be the future.

After recognizing the shortcoming of the team we decided to think broader. After describing the driving forces, which made it easy to understand the deep trends and the foundations of our topic, we were able to produce a system diagram. This is an overview of all important entities of the topic and their relationship. Its strength is fully exploited when leverage is used. Leverage means that a certain entity or a group of entities is taken into consideration and which are examined of how the system diagram looks like if the state of the entity of the group of entities changes. The most interesting entities are the ones which states have a possibility to go in several directions and which bring on great changes in the system diagram. This means that either a state can occur and this state gives certain changes or that an opposite change can occur giving other changes which can contradict the changes of the opposite state. If two of such uncertainties are taken, four scenarios can be formulated. The content of each scenario relies heavily on the two uncertainties. The description of the content of the scenario can be deducted from the research, the driving forces, the leveraged system diagram and a creative mind.

I am glad that I am been given the possibility to go through the “divine” experience of scenario thinking. It has taken away my prejudice about the uselessness of scenario thinking which was based on mathematical possibilities. Beside that I have learnt a new methodology I was completely unfamiliar with. Especially the process from describing the driving forces, making the system diagram, picking the key uncertainties and finally describing the final scenarios was new for me. Certainly the production of a system diagram was a great experience. You learn how to visualize the chaos you get after the research in a logical way that helps you to predict the future. If I take part of anther scenario thinking project again, I will be aware of thinking broad. If you think broad, you will get a better and fuller understanding of how events are interrelated. This makes it easier to see events which certainly will take place but which are not seen by the mass. This leads to surprising scenarios which all together are strong enough to “compete” the future.