How to use the Futures Triangle
What cinnamon rolls and scenario planning have to do with each other
Hey there,
At the beginning of May, I was in Copenhagen with my family. While they explored the city and ate delicious cinnamon rolls, I attended a two-day training course at the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies (CIFS).
The topic of this course was: How do you research the future?
During these two days we went through all the steps to explore trends, find the most relevant issues and prepare scenarios.
Working with scenarios is the ideal method for good future research. In this newsletter I therefore share the most important steps on how to approach this!
Happy reading,
Peter
PS. Or, if you prefer watching, I made a video about my work as a futurologist.
For English subtitles, select the icon of a sprocket (settings) and then subtitles. 🇺🇸
How to research the future
Future research takes a lot of time, but provides many insights for your organization or business. I went through these steps during the course, together with students from all over the world.
Explore trends
Identify relevant issues
Prepare scenarios
Step 1: Explore Trends
The first task is trend exploration. We did this during the course, using the Futures Triangle:
Push of the present: Which notable (mega) trends are changing the future?
Pull from the future: What are new developments and signs of change?
Weight of the past: What are the deep structures or institutions characteristic of our area of interest?
Our group case study focused on the future of urban mobility. Swedish car manufacturer Volvo was our fictional client.
First, we wrote trends and developments on post-its.
On a flip chart, we made three columns for the categories from the Futures Triangle. We used post-its to place trends in the right spots, sometimes after a discussion about the trend.
Some trends we discussed: increasing urbanization, more advanced sensor technology, the current infrastructure (roads, gas stations, and parking lots), and the sense of freedom that owning a car provides.
Step 2: Identify Relevant Issues
The next step is to identify the most relevant issues from the trend exploration. We took a new flip chart and drew two lines: one for the x-axis and one for the y-axis.
The x-axis represents uncertainty: from low uncertainty to high uncertainty.
The y-axis represents impact. This axis runs from low impact to high impact.
We then drew two lines: one halfway along the x-axis and one halfway along the y-axis, creating four quadrants.
We took the post-its with trends from the previous step. For each trend, we discussed in our group how certain the trend is and its impact.
The result is a classification of trends into the three boxes:
Low impact, both with low and high uncertainty: we monitor the trend but do not act on it immediately. Example: the development of smart cities and sensor technology.
High impact and low uncertainty: these are developments we need to act on immediately, because we know they are going to happen. Example: electrification and the further development of self-driving cars.
High impact and high uncertainty: these are the issues we want to use in preparing our scenarios. Example: do people want primarily access to mobility or own a car?
Step 3: Prepare Scenarios
In this step, we prepare scenarios. We take the developments from the high impact and high uncertainty quadrant.
In our group, we first discuss the tension in these developments. Tension meaning: we do not know which direction this development will take, such as in the case of access to mobility versus car ownership.
Ultimately, we pick two developments with tension. The extremes of these developments form the axes of a cross with which we build scenarios.
In Copenhagen, we identified the following axes:
Strict government regulation versus a free market;
Focus on data sharing versus emphasis on privacy.
This way, you get four quadrants. For example, strict regulation combined with a focus on data sharing.
Each quadrant is a scenario that we then develop: what does urban mobility look like in this scenario?
And what now?
After step 3 in the step-by-step plan, we worked on our scenarios. How we did that, I will share in my newsletter next month!
My opinion about the course
The two days in Copenhagen flew by. After the three steps I share here, there were several more steps with different working methods.
This form of future research is quite intensive, as you might infer from the step-by-step plan. But to achieve the best results, it is necessary to invest the time and energy.
Is it worth it? What does such a process yield? Instructors Kristian and Aron cited Pierre Wack, the founder of scenario planning:
The main goal is re-perception. That is awakening to the possibility of the future being different from the past or how one expects it to be.
Other participants
Besides the content, I also enjoyed talking with other participants during the social gathering at the end of the first day.
For instance, I spoke with Stefan, who works on digital innovation at the national television in Belgium, Emma from Finland, who wants to use this method more at the United Nations, and Rui, who conducts future studies for the Portuguese government.
Sofia from Sweden may have had the most to gain from our Volvo case in terms of content. She works at a well-known Swedish truck manufacturer.
Deep Dive
Articles, books, podcasts, videos, documentaries, and more on this theme.
READING / The story of Kodak and digital photography is a classic case of a company completely missing a relevant development. This article in Forbes describes what happened. Summary: the knowledge was there, but the will to anticipate or change not.
WATCHING / Besides entertainment, science fiction can be a way to stimulate your imagination. For example, the movie Dune 2 (8.6 on IMDb) is about strategic alliances, religions, and dealing with scarce resources.
And apart from that: it is a cool movie with great visuals and enough speed (compared to the first part). Now on HBO Max.
🙏 Thank you for reading
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