Learning Log-Alok Sharma

Personal and Academic Reflection:

Scenarios and Scenario thinking was a completely unknown concept for me before the start of our first class on the 11th March’05. Now when I look back, I think the learning process had started as soon as I got the reader for the course. After looking at the reader my preconceived notions made me think of this course to be one which will involve a lot of reading and assignments and finally we will have to present our learning in a final exam. But my assumptions were broken when I heard the course description from the professor and realized that I was in for something really exciting, new and with a different approach. The learning was that we have a fixed set of opinions for most of the things surrounding us and that we seldom drift from them, be it looking at a big reader and thinking in a fixed direction or be it strategy planning in an organization. Scenarios and scenario thinking challenge these assumptions and allow us to think of plausible future stories which will help us to make our short and long term strategies in a better and effective way.

Although it looked very exciting and enjoyable to plan for the future situation, when we actually formed teams and started to think of an issue and the uncertainties surrounding it, we realized that the task is an uphill one with a lot of conflicting views from the group members which resulted in a lot of chaos and confusion. It took us a lot of brainstorming and discussions with the professor and we finally decided to develop scenarios for the future of Wi-Fi in 2010. Now the next thing was to look for uncertainties surrounding this issue. This was not all that difficult as we looked at different factors like technology, social, government and industry that will affect the future of Wi-Fi. The learning here was important as we were not just looking at technology although our topic was more of that of technology. But we were looking at different aspects of the environment which could influence the future of Wi-Fi. This is very important as most of the times we do not take all these factors like government regulation, other industry and social developments and mostly concentrate ourselves on technology. After coming up with a number of uncertainties we then came up with some research questions and the next task was to do a detailed research on Wi-Fi and the different uncertainties. I had to put in a lot of effort and time in order to do research on the topic and a special focus on the different industries that affect Wi-Fi. While going through numerous documents on Wi-Fi I was surprised by the fact that how little I knew of Wi-Fi. Again the learning was that I was living with a fixed set of opinions on Wi-Fi which I had read in some magazines and newspapers and thought I knew a lot about Wi-Fi. But when I actually tried looking at different aspects of Wi-Fi in more detail and trying to relate different social, political, technological and industrial developments surrounding it I was astounded with the knowledge that I got. Learning never ends, but I had to limit myself due to time constraints on the amount of research, because otherwise it would have taken me another 4 weeks to just keep reading on Wi-Fi. At this moment I really wished that we had this course as a full course of 12 lectures rather than 6 lectures.

The next thing was to come up with two driving forces per person which we thought were the most important and will be the key drivers for the future of Wi-Fi. This was not very easy for me as most of things for me were inter-related and to come up with key driving forces was difficult. The problem was that when I thought of a particular driving force I came up another force which was driving the previous one, and which one to pick was a problem. I tried following the iceberg and trying to ask the question Why? All the time, but every time I asked the question Why? I came up another important driving force. After a lot of struggle I finally zeroed on two driving forces. The learning here was that don’t think scenario planning as an easy task, beware the worst is going to follow.

In the next class we got an introduction to systems thinking and modeling using systems diagram with the Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs example. It was really very nice to see how different forces are linked together to form a sort of story. And what was even better that after the modeling we tried to form a strategy to resolve the problem which gave me an insight as to different points of thinking and different ways of approaching a problem with the help of the systems diagram. The next obvious step for us was to come up with similar systems diagram for our issue linking all the driving forces to form a sort of web of driving forces. It was great fun making the systems diagram. We had no clue how to go about it. We just wrote all the driving forces that all our group members had made on different post-it and then put it on a big sheet of paper. Then we just tried linking all of them and a completely messy diagram. We even added some more forces which we had not though of earlier and also looked for the existing driving forces on the Wiki and tried to relate them to our driving forces. To connect all the driving forces was fun and easy what was time consuming and confusing was to come up with a reason as to which is driving the other and why and writing the reason on different arrows connecting different driving forces. But we were able to come up with a reasonable good (according to me) systems diagram before the end of the class.

During the next class Daniel showed us a small video where we were supposed to count the bounces of a basket ball made by a team wearing white shirts. It was an absolutely amazing exercise as I counted the number of bounces accurately but to my surprise I missed a Gorilla that came in the video. When I saw the video again I could not believe that I actually missed seeing the Gorilla. This was an important learning because often people are so engrossed with the current things that they miss any important opportunity or threat which will change their future. It is important to spot the Gorilla as well as doing things correctly. It was very useful and exciting transition towards our next step of coming up with key leverage points or forces or to spot the Gorillas.

The next task was to finally come up with two most important leverage points on the systems diagram, forces that have a major impact on our issue and then put them in a grid and come up with possible stories for the future of Wi-Fi. We also scheduled a meeting with Daniel to discuss our progress and the possible scenarios for the next class. We had a hard time during our meeting with Daniel as he told us that we are still not quite there with the work and have to put in a lot more effort. We as a group were also somewhat aware that we did lack a bit of coordination with our work and we have to agree with what Daniel had pointed out. Well I personally was not very happy with our progress till now although we had put in a lot of effort but there was still a lot to be done in a more systematic manner. We as a team had worked together on numerous projects in the past and come out with flying colors and we knew that its high team we sort things out and give it our best shot. As we knew that we have the capabilities to come up with something much better to what we had done till now. We did have a lot of other assignments as well, but then I personally felt that this is the way life is going to be and I tried to reorganize myself. The next few days I again spent on a lot of further research and we as a team decided to meet and further discuss our findings and try and come up with the two most important driving forces. The learning here was that although we as a team had never had much troubles working together and most of the times had a smooth sailing but sometimes when you become a bit complacent things can go hay-wire. What is always very important is to communicate, communicate and communicate. Perhaps it was the task of creating scenarios which is thinking about the unknown future with a lot of confusion and conflicts which made me and my team members further realize the importance of teams and team work and that of communication.

Well even after realizing that and finally spending a lot of time discussing on what are the two most important high leverage points, we still were very confused and had an entire set of conflicting suggestions and ideas about the two most important forces. We spent a complete day on deciding on the two most important driving forces and finally came up with four stories. The presentation was the next step to be done which ofcourse was a much less difficult than making the scenarios and stories.

Another thing which was really important was that as soon as we had finished presenting our scenarios in the class we got a feedback from Daniel on the presentation and the scenarios. It is very helpful and completes the learning process if you get the feedback. We knew where we further need to improve and what we did well.

Finally, I think that I 100% agree with what Daniel said in his first class “that by the end of these six lectures we will see the world in a different way”. I have started realizing the importance of scenario thinking to challenge the “official future” with which we have been living till now. I have realized that it is important to form plausible stories about the future linking social, political, technological, economical and environmental forces which will help us to make better short and long term strategies now. It is all about challenging your assumptions and thinking in just one direction and to come with different types of solutions for the future to give a better understanding of the present situation and how to approach the unknown future.

Business Reflection:

As I mentioned earlier, the concept of scenario’s and scenario planning was new to me before the commencement of this course. It was also the case when I started working after completing my engineering. I have a work experience of almost four years, the first three years being with Siemens and the remaining part with Hughes. I was looking after sales and account management in these two companies and was primarily involved with technical solution development and selling to corporate and government clients. Both the companies are top multinational companies but to be frank I did not witness anything like scenario planning during the course of my work.

The question that I know have in mind is that was there any scenario planning at all or was it that I was not aware of it. Did the senior management actually indulge in scenario planning? Was it that only people like me who were at junior management level were not aware of it?

It is hard for me to give a correct answer but with my past experiences and even discussions with senior managers and by attending management meetings and review sessions, I feel that the scenario planning process like we did in class was not actually being performed. The only planning was for the current financial year and how to achieve those financial commitments. There were targets set for us at the start of the year and we had to die to achieve those. The pressure never actually made me think as to what is going to be the future of the business that we were actually doing. I never thought that will the industry structure change, will new types of technology and products will dominate and will there be any effect of future government regulations on the business.

For example I was selling EPABX when I was in Siemens, but now I realized in my three years of doing that I saw the emergence of some new technologies like the CENTREX, the IP switches and others. I was never aware that these technologies are developing and will be competing with the EPABX industry. Will there be any EPABX in the next 10 years or will some other IP technology dominate? I never asked this question to myself nor did any of my peers to my knowledge. But the question here again is that was the top management also not aware of this? It is very surprising if that is the case, because we were never communicated of such trends by the senior managers. Even as I am writing this I am feeling how important scenarios and scenario thinking can be as it allows you to think differently about the future and have a better understanding of where you are heading.

There a number of other examples where I feel that I just did things as they came along without actually wondering why these things are happening, is there some kind of trend or is there some external developments changing the industry that we were operating in.

I now feel happy and satisfied that after learning about scenario thinking I will be able to challenge those assumptions about the future and will have a better understanding of the current situation and the strategies that evolve from them. This will help me in my future job prospects as I will be able to think about the future in different ways and challenge the “official future”.

The question that still remains in my mind is that whether scenario planning in an organization is the role of:

• Scenario consultants or
• Special focus group within a company who think about different types of future for the company or
• The Marketing team who is involved for future product developments or
• The research and development team or
• The senior management or
• The senior management with the involvement of employees at all levels.

Whatever the situation may be I think now I am well equipped with the knowledge and concepts about scenario planning for my future job to develop plausible scenario stories and thus have a better understanding of the future.