Can we talk….about the future ?

While we like to Think about the Future, we also need to talk about it. One of the challenges in talking about the future is that futures studies is a relatively new field, thus there is not yet agreement on vocabulary.

When we were doing our comprehensive review of scenario development a few years back – The Current State of Scenario Development — we confronted the question head-on. For instance, is it scenario development or scenario planning or just scenarios? And is it a method or a technique? Get the picture!

So we took a crack at defining some terms we use in doing futures work.

• The futures project is the largest unit of professional work. It includes the sum total of the objectives, the team, the resources and the methods employed in anticipating and influencing the future. Projects may be simple, involving just one product and technique, or complex, involving many steps each of which produces one or more products and uses one or more techniques.
• The approach is the process one employs in conducting a project. It consists of an ordered series of steps to accomplish the objectives of the project. Every project has an approach, whether it is explicitly articulated at the beginning or not. Some approaches are widely practiced, such as the approach to develop a strategic plan. A generic approach to a comprehensive foresight project is outlined in the six steps shown in Thinking about the Future: Framing, Scanning, Forecasting, Visioning, Planning, and Acting. In fact, most professional futurists and consultants use a favorite approach that they have honed over time.
• The deliverable is the one or more products or results that satisfy the objectives of the project. It is the final result of the work done in the approach – as a report, a database of trends, scenarios in various forms, a strategic plan and many more. Usually each step in the approach generates a product and together they form the deliverable from the project.
• A method or technique is the systematic means that a professional uses to generate a product. We found that method and technique are used rather interchangeably in the literature so it is hard to pick just one. Method carries a solid, organized, even an academic connotation where technique seems to relate more to style than to substance.
• A tool, another term often confused with method or technique, is more concrete. A tool is a device that provides a mechanical or mental advantage in accomplishing a task. Tools are things like video projectors, questionnaires, worksheets and software programs. By the same token, scenarios and plans are not tools.
• Finally, an exercise is a unit of activity within a lesson performed for the sake of practice and to acquire skill and knowledge. It may be, of course, that the skill or knowledge is applied right away in the same workshop as part of project work. Andy Hines