by Of course it’s not an either-or. But do the scales tip one way or another in foresight? It depends on the practitioner of course, but I’m going to argue that it’s [still] towards art. I say still based on Bell, in
his Foundations of Futures Studies classic text observing: “many working futurists today, perhaps a majority, would agree that futures studies is an art.”
I’ve noticed recently in my teaching of methods that we always get to a point where I say “it’s subjective.” It’s typically in a response to “how do we make xxx choice?” For instance, in deciding which drivers to select for a domain. We analyze our scanning hits, trends, issues, interview results, and whatever else we gathered, and cluster them into candidate drivers. Then we discuss, combine, eliminate and prioritize. We might sent them to their client and ask them to prioritize. Sure, there is some voting in there, but ultimately, how do we decide – it’s subjective. And that happens throughout the process. Gather the data, hard and soft, and then subjectively decide what to include.
What can we do to build our subjective muscles? Here’s where theory comes in. Being aware of social change theories, systems thinking, critical and integral thinking is important. So is being a Renaissance person, as Jim Dator says, we should be well-read in as many disciplines as possible. This knowledge helps us to make these key subjective decisions as we follow whatever project methodology we are applying. Experience is helpful here, but so are fresh perspectives.
Another prompt for this piece is I’ve also been getting more questions about how we’re integrating in analytics, big data, etc. The short answer is we are watching this very closely. And last summer we had alum Anne Boysen do a wonderful elective course on Data Analytics. I also say that we think it is going to be increasingly good and useful…..but that our work is still more art than science.
A really terrific piece that digs into the art or science question was done by Alex Burns from the Swinburne Foresight program many years ago (link). Care to weigh in? – Andy Hines
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