Academic reflection

Academic reflection

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Introduction

This part is a professional/ academic reflection on the topic of intellectual property.

Futurists vs Scenario thinkers

In the past, to think of future was to make a scientifically based prediction. These futuristic people nowadays, use scenario’s to tell a story abut the future.

Scenario thinkers are people who make up a statement by telling a heuristic narrative that explores alternative plausibility’s of what might happen in the future. The major difference is that scenario thinkers tell a story according to a strategic impact on a business and a normal futurist could be anyone thinking of the future.

Scenario thinkers vs historians

Scenario thinkers have similarities with historians. They both understand that surprise, contingency, and deviations from the trend line are the most important in conducting the research. Among scenario writers, context matters.

The process of the scenario method has a lot of similarities with historical thinking. Not very much intellectual adjustment is needed for historians, to come up to write a methodologically rigorous “histories of the future.” [1]

Taxonomy of methodologies to develop scenarios

Scenario planning has brought a lot of methodologies on how to make a scenario. Different organizations, with different goals, have had different experiences. An article I found is about the examination of actual operating practices, problems and pitfalls that occur in scenario thinking. Below I describe general lessons that could be used as a checklist to adopt, prepare and deliver a scenario planning.

• Purpose
Here clear and realistic goals must be established. In this phase, the client must be informed about the outcome of the process and what should be done and what not. The scenario should also have a formal connection with the strategic planning process and it should be resolved whether the purpose of the scenario is learning or planning. The target audience should be decided and a list should be made of the topics that the organizations wants to understand. After that a strategic question should be formulated and a shared vision of the future must be formed by creating a shared language with the organization. Hereby, attention must be paid to the organization structure and one should keep in mind that scenario’s are no predictions.

• Participants
Management involvement and support must be gained and if would be helpful to involve them in the initial research process. Before continuing, a scenario team must be carefully selected and diverse interest groups and key actors should be included. But after that, remarkable people could still be introduced in the process and you should use input from experts in the field by interviews, for example.

• Process
There are many ways of conducting a scenario process. That is why the scope of the research must not be limited. But keep in mind that the planning of time and timing is very important. The scenario’s should be about dept as well as breadth. A pilot study is often helpful to accomplish this and links could be established with similar activities. A training workshop could keep the process continuous.

• Method
A formal recognizable method, or more than one method, should be employed and one should decide whether to use inductive or deductive methods. The environment should be scanned and a lot of serious brainstorming should be done in strategic conversations during this phase. At last a feeling of crisis should be invoked. After that the number of scenario’s should be decided upon.

• Implementation
In this phase, there responsibilities should be stated. The recommendations should be clear and relevant. The feasibility of recommendations should be demonstrated and the costs and benefits should be connected to them. Support should also be gained. In the end, learning is an iterative process, so keep in mind that success is hard to pin-point.
After studying this paper, I realized that we also conducted our scenario planning research according to these guidelines. [2]

Recources
[1]http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/hith/2002/00000041/00000004/art00221
[2] http://www.dit.ie/DIT/built/futuresacademy/whoweare/scenarioplanningdoc.oct02.oct02.doc