Difference between a futurist and scenario thinker

In order to understand the difference between a futurist and scenario thinker, first the main difference between “Futurism” and “Scenario thinking or “planning” concepts should be well explained.

Futurism is the study of the medium to long-term future by extrapolating present technological, economic or social trends, or by attempting to predict future trends. Futurism also includes normative or preferred futures, but the real contribution is to connect both extrapolated (exploratory) and normative research to explore better strategies5.

Futures studies or Futurism tries to show how changes of today might become the reality of the future or tomorrow. Its method is to include different types of attempts in order to predict and analyze the possible future occurrences in the human history. A usual time frame for future studies is twenty to thirty years [6].

The on-going effort of “Futures studies” usually focuses on the analysis of the images of the future and the distinction between possible, probable and preferred (normative) futures. This effort includes collecting change-data supporting the emergence of futures in any of those three categories, as well as setting up scenarios, which portray all categories of futures [6]. Like historical studies that try to explain what happened in the past and why, the efforts of futures studies to understand the potential of the present requires the development of theories of present conditions and how conditions might change. For this task futures studies uses a wide range of theoretical models and practical methods, many of which come from other disciplines — including economics, sociology, history, engineering, mathematics, psychology, technology, physics, biology, and theology[6].

There are two main factors showing the distinction between the futures studies and the research conducted by these other disciplines [6]:

Futures studies often examines not only probable but also possible and preferable futures .

Futures studies typically attempts to gain a more holistic view based on insights from a range of different disciplines.

Futurist is a term often used to describe management consultants who advise corporations on a wide range of global trends, risk management and potential market opportunities4.

A futurist might use different proportions of inspiration and research for its work. People, who make future predictions through supernatural means and also attempt to forecast the short-term or readily foreseeable, are not called as futurist [5].

Scenario thinking or planning is a method used to find out more about the future by understanding the nature and impact of the most uncertain and important driving forces affecting our future in order to make flexible long term plans [1]. A usual time frame for scenario planning can be five to ten years [3].

Scenario thinking is based on a different notion. Rather than adopting a single, "most likely" outcome, it advocates describing the future by a collection of possible eventualities. It encourages "contingent thinking" rather than plans based on single predictions[4]..

To be able to construct scenarios, a wide variety of perspectives must be gathered from outside boarders of the organization culture as well as from within it. Gathering these perspectives, future stories are written by combining the logic and imagination. The outcome of these stories should not only reflect the images of the future but also a pathway of events through time that could lead us from where we are now to that future world. In order to do that, the driving forces that will most likely affect the futures world should be well understood [7].

A successful scenario planning is dependant on the ability of looking at the future in its own terms. It is crucial to release our mind free of assumptions of the current reality that dominates our strategic thinking. By achieving this free minded thinking, it becomes easier to create accurate assumptions that might have an open-ended examination of alternative future [7].

According to the information given above, the main differences between a futurist and scenario thinker can be summarized as the followings:

A futurist tries to analyze the images of the future and present time in order to distinguish between possible, probable, preferable futures. In order to do that, a futurist tries to set up different scenarios that will reflect all categories of the future. On the other hand, a scenario thinker tries to build scenarios by possessing an independent thinking released from the present and futures dominant assumptions. Also, a scenario thinker never aims to end up with a preferable future scenario.

Futurist uses the help of science, research, theoretical and practical methods in order to build its “future studies”. On the other hand, scenario thinker tries to define the important driving forces that will help in building the scenario.

A usual time frame for the future studies prepared by futurists is twenty to thirty years on the other hands the usual time frame for scenarios is five to ten years.

A futurist should consider the conditions in present and how they might change or develop in the future when preparing the futures studies. On contemporary, a scenario thinker can build its scenarios independent of the present situation.

References

1 http://www.well.com/~mb/scenario/.

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scenario_planning#Scenario_planning_compared_to_other_technique

3 http://www.rics.org/Management/Businessmanagement/Businessplanning/FT%20SUMMER%20SCHOOL%20New%20risks%20put%20scenario%20planning%20in%20favour%20(Financial%20Times).html

4 http://www.futurist.com/futuristnews/archive/EvolutionChange.pdf

5 http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/enc3/future_studies

6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_studies#Methodologies

7 http://www.metabridge.com/assoc/stratscen1c.htm