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The Learning Scenario Planning Three-Day Simulation Course presented here is now available for in-house training.

Key course components

Scenario and systems thinking; developing the business idea

Making sense of the world about us: the messiness of reality; hange and the impact of unintended consequences; Worldviews as perspective
The systemic perspective: wholeness, connectedness, hierarchy and emergence; the environment as a suprasystem
Model a simple system and identify its environmental influences
The business idea: relevance and development: What business are we in? What are the success factors?
Identifying the nature of competitive advantage: product differentiation, cost leadership, niche market dominance
Identifying the system of distinctive competencies creating competitive advantage
Designing the business idea: defining the activity set, identifying resources to feed competencies

Scenario building to create alternative futures

Interview the client and decide on the strategic agenda
Review environmental influences and critical uncertainties
Interviews with remarkable people
Check on the critical uncertainties and identify top variables from which we can generate an appropriate matrix
Getting to the matrix
Scenario stories: checking systemic logic of the scenarios; draft narratives; naming the scenarios

Adapting the business idea;moving from scenarios to strategy

In the context of scenarios what are the major impacts which we must begin to take seriously over the next five years or so

Cluster these impacts into strategy activity sets by scenario e.g. innovation; alliances; customers; sales & marketing; etc.

Identify the strategic options (what we must do) which the impacts generate, and measure the relevance of these options across the scenarios

Identify the ways in which the business idea might need to adapt to deal with the strategic options
Prepare an up framed version of the business idea for one of the scenarios which manages the futures risk
Working the future: scanning and monitoring, early warning indicators, research
The strategic or critical conversation: communicating meaning, testing new ideas, innovation and renewal