Strategy is messy, chaotic, and transformative, just like a youthful romance. You know you need to break up with your strategic plan. So who better than the Bard of Breakups herself to offer searing guidance on how to break with your strategic plan? Several years ago at a Microsoft …
The Keystone Pipeline debate needs scenarios. In the 13 August issue of New Scientist (Surprise! Keystone XL will make climate change worse), Hal Hodson covers a new report on the Keystone pipeline that suggests it will result in lower fuel costs, and therefore encourage the …
Today the BBC asks, “Could tensions over Ukraine hit space?” The answer: absolutely, but NASA has not behaved like the master planner it should be with missions stretching far out in time. If NASA had effectively, and I say effectively because I can’t believe somewhere in …
Scenarios ask people to challenge their assumptions. Assumptions are a form of belief. Organizations and individuals assign values to uncertainties. The accumulation of these values become the basis for what I call the “myth of the future,” that narrative construct that people carry around with them that forms …
Download the PDF here. Photo: Daniel W. Rasmus, 2004 I was talking recently with a colleague who consults for the cruise industry, and it struck me that the cruise industry desperately needs scenario planning. With ships approaching $1billion each, multi-billion dollar fleets require strong management, …
Download the entire paper here. 1. Workforce Dynamics Key Dynamic: Will the workforce effectively integrate, or will generational issues result in bifurcation? What skill gaps and needs for knowledge will emerge as each generation seeks to define its future? 2. Globalization Key Dynamic: Will the …
Recently, I helped Rob Salkowitz, the instructor of the University of Washington’s Future of Marketing class work with his students to develop scenarios about the future of marketing. Although we employed an abbreviated process, we successfully engaged students and established a framework they will continue …
Education in Uncertain Times was the topic of the afternoon for Daniel Rasmus of Bellevue College (Neb.). Rasmus is the author of Management by Design: Applying Design Principles to the Work Experience (2010) and Listening to the Future: Why It’s Everybody’s Business (2008). He shared …
Watch an exclusive interview with Rafael Ramirez, Director of the Oxford Scenarios Programme and Fellow in Strategy at the Saїd Business School and Green Templeton College, Oxford University. A world expert on scenario planning and a founder of theories on the aesthetics of business, work …
The Lera blog gets it right today, quoting Gary Hamel: “The problem with the future is that it is different. If you are unable to think differently, the future will always arrive as a surprise.” Big Data won’t foretell the future unless the future is …