Having both worked for Shell they share how the globally renowned scenario planning practice has been born out of the failure of financial prediction tools. They reflect on how future visioning has expanded and matured to become powerful narrative descriptions about “plausible stories” about how the “business context” of Shell might develop.

They also talk about cycles of popularity in which the scenario planning team experienced periods of great triumph and times where the possibility of being shut down was imminent.

For anyone who wants to build successful corporate foresight practices the article is a must read. Particularly the discussion how to (1) create value in a corporate organization and how to (2) develop a high connectedness in the organization by linking to expected units such as corporate strategy, innovation management, and risk management and less expected units such as public affairs and leadership development, is highly enlightening.

They conclude with seven  golden rules for success that are not only relevant for scenario planning, of which at least six can be applied also to corporate foresight practices in general:

• Make it plausible not probable
• Strike a balance between relevant and challenging
• Tell stories that are memorable yet disposable
• Add numbers to narrative
• Scenarios open doors
• Manage disagreement as an asset
• Fit into a broader strategic management system

To read the full article follow the following link: Wilkinson, A., & Kupers, R. 2013. Living in the Futures. Harvard Business Review, 91(5): 119-127.

We define such sustainability innovations as:

…inventions in technology, process or market that simultaneously create economic and societal value. Societal value can be differentiated in protecting the environment, ensuring economic growth and advancing social well-being. 

In the article we present a three-step approach on how to brainstorm, design and validate  business models in new innovation areas, see figure below.

The approach has been tested in a real-life situation within the field of smart energy. We conclude that CBM creates a powerful platform for jointly

• identifying economic and societal value
• defining value creation/value capture systems
• planning of complex and uncertain future markets.

In the presentation below we show the approach step-by-step:

Fore more information you can also download a pre-print version here:

Rohrbeck, R., L. Konnertz and S. Knab 2013 Collaborative Business Modelling for Systemic and Sustainability Innovations, International Journal of Technology Management, forthcoming.

We differentiated 13 items along four dimensions:

• enhanced perception of emerging change and discontinuities
• enhanced strategic management by for example fostering strategic discussion and creating the ability to adopt alternative perspectives
• enhances innovation management by for example enhancing customer understanding and reducing the level of uncertainty in R&D projects
• overall value contributions in terms of facilitating organizational learning and an improved ability to shape the future

Overall we find that firms generate significantly positive benefits from their corporate foresight activity. By matching the value creation date with firm performance we further reveal that top performing companies get considerably more value of their corporate foresight practices than their less performing peers (see figure 1).

Figure 1: Value created from corporate foresight activities, overview.

In the future we plan to investigate further which kind of corporate foresight activities contribute the different value creation categories.

For the detailed results and discussion of the finding you can download the full article at: Rohrbeck, R. and J. O. Schwarz 2013 The Value Contribution of Strategic Foresight: Insights from an Empirical Study on Large European Companies. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, forthcoming.

• Consulting firms offer trend databases
• Foresight methods such as the Delphi technique are conducted via the Internet
• Future-relevant data are identified through web-mining and data-mining
• Methods for using ICT in creative group-decisions are being developed

In fact, foresight support systems (FSS) is an emerging research field. A new special issue project aims to unify previously scattered efforts of either conceptualizing or creating such support systems and tools into a coherent discussion and stream of literature. The issue will be edited by 5 guest editors for Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Submission deadline is 28th February 2013 – see the full call for papers for details.

Prospective authors are encouraged to contact the guest editors with enquires in relation to this special issue. “Since strategic foresight is often credited as a crucial antecedent for long-term success in companies, and up to now foresight processes have largely been project-based and individually implemented, it seems particularly promising to integrate methods of futures research in decision support systems.”, writes the editors.

Thank you all for contributing to make the PhD course a success!

I have personally used the tool to display opinions of managers based on semi-structured interviews. An example of a more creative use within strategic foresight is found in the Creative strategic foresight workshop playbook – prepared by Dr. Sandra Romenska and the CALF project. Researchers from CUHK at the Chinese University of Hong Kong have also published work on their experiments with using Wordle for analyses. “Word clouds can be a useful tool for preliminary analysis and for validation of previous findings” they write in their The Qualitative Report article (McNaught, C. & Lam, P. 2010). However, the authors conclude that due to some limitations Wordle should not be used as a stand-alone method, and that it works better on raw transcriptions rather than on second-level summaries.

Another tool – more on the light side – is Make beliefs comix. Comic strips are sometimes welcome breaks in presentations. Instead of Googling for a strip that fits your purpose it is possible to customize one, helped by artists Bill Zimmermann and Tom Bloom. Maybe it could even be a useful workshop tool? Here is a test strip on strategic foresight:

Do you know about other good – preferably also free – online presentation and/or research tools? If yes, your recommendation will be much appreciated.

Global foresight is a wiki for foresight students, grads, professionals and advocates.

The website Global foresight lists communities, degree programs, courses, people, employers, organizations and educational materials that help advance our global foresight culture. They also keep a community developed list of foresight professionals in ten global regions and have a useful section of foresight definitions and frameworks.

The Global Foresight website is run by the Foresight Education and Research Network (FERN) who also have a LinkedIn group connecting foresight professionals around the world.

“FERN membership is free of charge. We promote and actively engage our volunteer staff and members in our community via communication in social networks, newsletters, and open projects. We’re always open to new members joining us via LinkedIn and as staff volunteering with our projects”, writes Executive Director of FERN, Susan Chesley Fant.

More information about how you can contribute as an editor of Global Foresight can be found on the site.

Important dates:

• The conference outline submission deadline is 31. December 2012. See details in the conference call for papers.
• Please note that the conference dates have been moved. The correct dates are 16-19 June 2013. The venue will be at Helsinki Congress Paasitorni. Paasitorni  is an old workers house from 1908 restored as a modern conference center. It was presented as a candidate Unesco World Heritage Site in 2010. Read more at about practicalities at the conference web site.
• The final submission dates for our two special issues are 30 June 2013.

Conference news from ISPIM:

• Organised by ISPIM, and hosted by Aalto University School of Economics in partnership with Lappeenranta University of Technology, this conference will bring together around 500 innovation experts from 50 countries.
• The three-day programme will include: The Knut Holt Memorial Address; Industry-Leading Keynote Speakers; Innovation Thought Leaders from companies such as Nokia, Volvo, Swarovski, Bombardier, Grundfos plus many more; Luminary Speakers; “Hot Topic” Roundtable Discussions; Facilitated Themed Sessions with Academic and Practitioner Presentations; Workshops; Special Interest Groups; Academic Research Development Sessions.
• Helsinki is one of Europe’s most modern and culturally progressive cities, yet remains in touch with an intriguing history stretching back over 450 years. For more information visit the City of Helsinki website.
• As with all ISPIM events, delegates will experience a taste of local culture at magnificent dinner venues, so there will be plenty of time for networking.

The main product of our workshop was to identify the most important topics within foresight research and practice. The list was developed though brainstorming, rating and discussions in groups to secure the highest return from the expert knowledge of the participants. Then, another plenary rating and discussion fostered the final list (see figure below).

The five topics rated as highly relevant – meaning they had high ratings in terms of the expected future importance and low ratings in terms of how capable firms of today are at mastering the topics – were:

1) How to filter future knowledge. This relates to the difficulty of assessing the increasingly large amount of reports about trends and futures, and the challenges of evaluating the credibility of such reports.

2) How to assess weak signals. While the relevance of a weak signal can easily be determined in hindsight when the trend is in full force, it is very challenging to anticipate its potential relevance in the emergence phase.

3) How to create a sense of urgency. Firms are primarily focused on exploiting and optimizing their current business. When it comes to future developments the interest of (top) management is often very low. Thus, the ability to create a sense of urgency in the organization is key for corporate foresight to succeed.

4) How to create/influence the future. Corporate foresight methods are designed to enhance understandings about future developments, but are often not sufficient to trigger organizational responses. When the response includes convincing multiple stakeholders, getting to action is even more difficult.

5) How to link foresight to strategy and innovation. One way of ensuring that insights into the future trigger organizational responses is linking foresight to follow up processes such as strategy and innovation management. However, very few firms report to have successfully established such links.

The road ahead for advancing corporate foresight research as well as practice may be indicated by the topics above.

Read more: To see our top 5 out of the 16 papers which were presented at the conference, read part one of the ISPIM report. For more on the workshop, including the three perspectives presented to kick-start the session (the policy foresight perspective, the practitioner’s perspective and the corporate foresight perspective), see the full conference report.

Do you want to join us? New participants in our special interest group are always welcome. To work with us you can select from a number of activities:

1) Discussing and sharing knowledge

• ISPIM Innovation for Financial Service Summit
  19-21 September 2012, Luxembourg
• 5th ISPIM Innovation Symposium 2012
  “Stimulating Innovation – Challenges for Management, Science & Technology”
  9-12 December 2012, Seoul, Korea
  (submission deadline for outlines 14 September 2012)
• XXIV ISPIM Annual Conference 2013
  “Innovating in Global Markets: Challenges for Sustainable Growth”
  9-12 June 2013, Helsinki, Finland
  (submission deadline for outlines 31 December 2012)

2) Researching and publishing through two special issues

• Corporate foresight in Technological Forecasting & Social Change,
  submission deadline 30.06.2013
• Organizational future orientation in Futures,
  submission deadline 30.06.2013

3) Networking

• Through our LinkedIn-group Strategic Foresight – Strategische Frühaufklärung -Veille Stratégique

In our own article in the section we discuss

• the barriers to corporate sustainability and change
• the three greek elements that drive change
• how corporate foresight methods can be used to drive corporate sustainability

We summarized out discussion in the figure below. To successfully change towards a more sustainable future we need a synthesis between elements logos (thought, rationality, discourse) and epithumia (desire) to create ergo (action). Integrated foresight methodologies that we have discussed in an earlier post can support an approach that spans all three elements and thus drives change.

Reference and full text of our article: Rohrbeck, R. and P. Kallehave 2012 The Role of Corporate Foresight in Promoting Sustainability, In: UN Global Compact International Yearbook.

For more information on the Global Compact and on Corporate Social Responsibility information, you can visit the CSR Manager website.